Star Wars VII: The Last Remnant
by Luna'sCaptain
Summary: The last Jedi padawan, broken and abandoned, lives in relative peace on the desert world of Tatooine. She is content to allow the memories of her childhood to fade...until an escape pod containing two droids employed by the rebellion lands near her home.
1. Chapter 1

Captain Phantom, leader of Luna's army, here. Or would it be Master Phantom, seeing as this is a Star Wars story? Ah, I don't know. But I don't own Star Wars, as much as I wish I did. It belongs to George Lucas. All of the canon characters I've mentioned in here belong to George Lucas. Nakomi Swift, my OC, however, does not. Neither does the writing.

And you know what? It doesn't belong to you, either. But I encourage you to read this and review it, and I warn you that every other chapter will be a flashback. Thank you, good people of the internet. Captain Phantom out.

Even after seventeen years, it still feels like someone's trying to kill me.

I wake up in the middle of the night, trembling, reaching for a weapon that I no longer have. Dima says that I cry out. Sometimes for my master, sometimes for my friends. Occasionally, I'll beg for the man that might have been my murderer to stop. But lately, I've been promising to pay him in full for what he did.

Dima's offered to leave a light on for me. To keep me from waking in complete darkness and clawing at phantoms only I can see, because all to often these "monsters" turn out to be the door or the side table or the post of my bed.

"I just don't understand why you don't want a lamp in there or something," she muttered, winding bandages around my fingertips. "Tearing your nails out every night attacking the wall...don't you think you would stop of you actually saw what it was?"

I shrugged, glancing outside our meager home. At the spot where Hesid is buried, at the empty early-morning sky.

"I wouldn't be able to sleep with a light shining in my eyes," I said mildly.

"Well, we could—" Dima glanced up and caught my gaze, her face relaxing for a moment. Then she shook her head hard, annoyance pulling her lips back into a snarl. "Don't _do_ that!"

"Do what?"

"You know what."

I pulled my hand away and stood up, pushing my chair back under the table.

"I'm not any good at it, anyway..."

Dima barked a laugh, gathering up the medical supplies. We both knew that what I had just said wasn't true. My methods were crude, because of the fact that I hadn't been trained during the crucial parts of my development, but my powers themselves were strong.

"Just keep your eyes to yourself."

"You never complain when I get a lower price from the raiders."

"Which reminds me. You need to stop doing that."

I didn't answer, just reached for my boots. They've been through a lot; made bigger as I grew, repaired after a shot from a raider's gun split my calf muscles, had rags stuffed in to cushion the toes that I frequently break. They're good boots. Maybe not the best-looking, but still.

"You're not going out today," Dima snapped at me.

"We need water."

"We can manage until your fingers heal."

"Hey, I've made a trip with worse than this," I argued. "There's no danger! Even the raiders leave us alone."

"Yes, they do," she agreed, lifting a couple of our water jugs. When she realized that I was watching her grimace at how light they were, she turned away. "But they're not what I'm worried about."

"Then what—" I had been clumsily doing up my laces, but suddenly, I froze. The tugging at my mind, a squirming within the very cells of my body, a song rising up through the depths of my being. Something within me, something that had been with me since birth, calling out to me. Telling me that something was very wrong. This feeling...I knew it. It was so familiar, and so sweet, that it brought tears to my eyes. No matter that the message it carried was sowing nausea in my stomach and agony between my temples. I thought that I had lost this ability, all those years ago, when he...

"Nakomi?" a faraway voice asked, concerned. I massaged my temples, blinking. Coming back to myself, like after I had a nightmare. "Nakomi, what's wrong?"

"I don't know," I muttered. "Something happened...something big..."

"I think you should sit down." Dima pushed me into a chair. I blinked up at her; I hadn't even realized I was standing. "You look like you're about to pass out."

I tried to stand up again, but she wouldn't let me. "Just stay there, I'll get you a glass of water."

"We don't have enough." As soon as she turned away, I got to my feet. "I need to go."

"Oh, no, you don't. When's the last time you had something to eat?"

"I—" My thoughts turned to our almost-empty pantry. The dried meat and stale bread that I had turned down yesterday despite my aching stomach, thinking of the woman that I lived with. I was young. I could bounce back from starvation, but she couldn't.

"That's what I thought. Dehydrated, starved, sleep-deprived...my goodness, Nakomi, it's a wonder you're not dead."

I flinched. _Dead..._

Sightless eyes staring up at the high ceilings of the Temple. Cauterized wounds. The war cries of a madman. Hesid clutching my hand, his frail body trembling with the effort of holding onto this world, fever fading from him as his heart slowed...

Dead. They're all dead.

Shouldn't I have been dead, too?

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that," Dima said softly, placing a hand on my shoulder. Guiding me, shaking, back into the chair. "We'll get you something to eat, honey. Something to drink. You can go back to bed, maybe you'll be able to sleep now that it's daytime. You can go get water from the Lars' farm tomorrow."

"Dima," I said slowly, "I _felt _something."

"What? Weak in the knees?"

"No..." I closed my eyes, searched for the remainders of that feeling that had somehow caused me to almost collapse. "Something...something crashed...into the planet. Onto Tatooine, not far from here. A ship? No. An escape pod—"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Force." I looked in her eyes, but this time, I didn't try to bend her to my will. "I felt it. It told me things."

She hesitated for a moment before replying. "Nakomi, all you felt was the consequences of putting your lunch back where you found it—no, don't even try it, I _saw _you. You haven't felt this Force thing in years. In my opinion, they just had you kids on drugs in that temple."

I gritted my teeth. It was real. It had always been real. My childhood fluttered in the back of my mind: making things fly across the room with a wave of my hand, jumping off of a balcony and floating to the floor like a feather, practicing with a sword woven of emerald light. Was all of that a drug-induced hallucination? No. Of course not.

"Then what's this?" I asked, gesturing to my eyes. The greatest weapons I have, as Dima once put it after I made an outlaw turn around and leave our home. It helps that they're a striking violet and thick-lashed; people actually want to look at them.

"You're persuasive." She helped me up and guided me to my room. "Luckily, so am I. Take of those boots."

I did as I was told, then crawled beneath the covers. Thin strips of sunlight slanted across the covers, despite the metal covering over the window. Dima set a cup of water and a plate with some food on it on the side table.

"I'm going to go see if that band of outlaws is still camped out over the ridge," she told me. "If they are, I might have to send you after them with your rifle."

She was joking, of course. I thought she was going to kill me when she caught Biggs and I aiming at the Lars boy from one of the hills around Anchorhead, even though he protested that the gun wasn't loaded and I said that he had talked me into it.

(That was the last time any of the kids from the settlement went anywhere near me. The rumor got around that my mother was Dingbat Dima, the only hermit crazier than Ben Kenobi. And, of course, I heard a couple of them telling each other that I had "freaky eyes.")

"Because I'm the best bounty hunter on this hemisphere." I closed my eyes. Dima's hand tucked a lock of dark hair behind my ear.

"I don't know what we'd do without your income. At any rate, _stay here _until I get back. I shouldn't be gone more than an hour."

I heard her leave. No engine thrummed to life; she had chosen not to take the Landspeeder. I wasn't surprised. Dima hated that thing and refused to ride on it unless it was absolutely necessary. And she never drove it, leaving that job up to me and my reflexes.

I forced myself to count to two hundred, by which time I guessed that she was too far away to stop me. Then I leapt out of bed, pulled on my boots, and tucked my hair up inside a helmet with a polarized visor. The rest of my ensemble, a loose-fitting white tunic and pale leggings, would protect me from the sun while keeping me cool. Grabbing my rifle off of its place of honor on the wall and slinging the strap around myself as I walked outside, I glanced first at Hesid's grave, feeling the sorrow that the years hadn't dulled, then in the direction that Dima would have taken.

"I'm sorry," I murmured, getting into the Landspeeder and starting it. "But this...is too important for me to leave alone."

I was gone before her shouts of fury could reach me.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, look who's here," Zett observed. I glanced up from where I was sitting on the floor, trying to etch something into my light saber.

"Who?"

"One of the Jedi masters."

"Yoda?"

"No, this one's human."

I stood up and joined him where he was leaning on the railing of the balcony, arms folded on top of it. A young man strode purposefully through the halls below us, his robes billowing around him.

"That's Master Obi-Wan," I said, glancing at Zett. "You honestly didn't recognize him?"

"They all look the same to me," he responded. "With the beards and everything?"

I glanced at him, skeptically taking in his ten-year-old profile, his bushy blond hair, his gray eyes. Looking for any sign that he was joking. I didn't see any.

"I wonder what he's doing here," I said, changing the subject as I glanced down at Obi-Wan. He seemed to be heading for the training rooms, where Master Yoda was working with the younglings. Bear Clan, if I wasn't mistaken. I remembered my days before I was assigned a master. Learning to rely on the others in my clan, especially Zett. Dreaming of the day when I would be able to leave the temple, when I would truly be a padawan.

Unfortunately, having a master didn't necessarily mean that you got to go with them wherever they went. My separation from my own master was proof enough of that.

"Let's go find out." Zett started to walk away, gesturing for me to follow him. I did, despite my misgivings.

"Spying on a Jedi?"

"There's nothing better to do."

"Cin'll kill you if he finds out."

Zett's face tightened slightly at the mention of his temporary master, Cin Drallig, Battlemaster of the Temple.

"_Cin _has no jurisdiction over me."

"But he's your master," I pointed out, walking beside him. "You're his padawan. He—"

"Mierme was my master," he said quietly. I didn't reply. Mierme Unill, his first master, the one that he was assigned to at the age of five. The war hero. Whom had been slain in full view of his apprentice by a masked Sith, on the battlefield, fighting for the future of our Republic...

Zett was nine at the time, and a commander. He came back thin, silent, and scarred. Greeted by me, a whiny, sheltered child bitter over having only left the Temple once and being abandoned by my master, I'm amazed that he was still willing to be friends with me. Though he smiled a lot more now than he had at first.

"Hurry up, Nakomi, we're losing him. I can't believe your last name's Swift."

"I can't believe they even let _you _in the temple, Master I-Still-Can't-Hold-a-Light-Saber-the-Right-Way," I countered. It was true; the technique that Yoda had drummed into us ever since we were capable of lifting one of the weapons continued to elude him.

"Where are you two going in such a hurry?"

I stopped and whirled around. Hesid Gavada, red-haired bane of my existence. His was a situation almost identical to mine. Sheltered within the Jedi Temple his whole life (other than his journey to the caves of Ilum), left behind when his master Ki-Adi-Mundi headed to Mygeeto. You would think that this would make us willing to put aside our past differences (him kissing me when we were still younglings, me hitting him with the butt of my light saber as restitution, him pushing me down a flight of stairs in revenge, etc.), but, unfortunately, we went at each other like Separatists and Loyalists.

"That's none of your business, Gavada," I snapped. "Shouldn't you be off crying for your master somewhere?"

"Shouldn't you?" he countered, raising an eyebrow. I glared at him as he walked around us, placing himself directly in our path.

"Get out of my way."

"Or what? You'll cut me in half? You're a bit small and pretty to be Obi-Wan, dear Nakomi."

"And you're a bit clumsy and ugly to be Darth Maul," I spat back. Hesid just laughed.

"Trust me, Swift, if we were to spar, my light saber would be going into _you_."

I felt heat rise to my cheeks, but before I could call him out for being truly disgusting, Zett took a step forward.

"That sort of talk's more suited to the outer colonies," he suggested. "You know what they do to kids like you out there? Light sabers are the least of your worries, let me tell you..."

Hesid seemed to falter for a moment, then he smiled and said, "Ah, yes, the high and mighty Commander Jukassa. Your parents must be so proud. Seen them lately?"

I gasped, and my hand flew to the light saber hanging at my waist, though not as fast as Zett's. How dare Hesid mention his parents. Parents were sacred, anonymous entities, kept from us by the Jedi Order, because it was believed that they would interfere with our training. One had to give everything to become...well, to become like us. Family was one of those things. But Zett. Zett had seen his parents, in dreams that told of their savage murders at the hands of the same Sith that had later killed his master.

But he let his hand drop, and restrained me before I could pull out my weapon.

"Nakomi," he said in a low voice, "he's nothing. Let him go."

"So you've got a padawan now?" Hesid asked, raising an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware you'd passed the trials, but I guess that if they made you a commander, they can make you a Jedi. But I was sure that Nakomi was under the tutelage of Aayla Securum. Has she died? I bet the droids got her, eh? Pulled off her antennae, one by—"

He barely had time to get up his blue light saber before my green one clashed with it, sending multicolored sparks skidding across the floor. Zett was shouting, and reaching for me, but Hesid and I were too fast. We were taking place in the sort of rapid-fire fight-dance sword-play that I had only dreamed of until now. I saw fear on his face, and my anger only increased. How dare he talk about Aayla that way. I was going to kill him. Cut him in half, just like Obi-Wan had done with Darth Maul. Years before my birth, but still.

Suddenly, Hesid slipped. I dove on top of him, a slash that would have gone right through his chest barely blocked by his light saber. Breathing hard, I leaned close to him, narrowing my eyes with malice.

"I could kill you," I breathed. "Right here, right now. No one would care. You're so weak in the force, so small, so ugly, not even your master loves you, and I'm—"

_"Youngling," _someone hissed, grabbing the back of my shawl and hauling me bodily off of Hesid. My light saber was ripped out of my hands, and I tilted my head back, looking up into the furious face of Master Obi-Wan. "What were you doing?"

"I—I was—" My tongue seemed frozen in my mouth. I couldn't think of a good lie. What _had _I been doing, anyway? Fighting with another padawan within the confines of the Temple?

"She was trying to kill me, Master," Hesid said grimly, getting to his feet with a noble look on his face. Playing the part of the martyr.

"He provoked us," Zett cut in, pointing at Hesid, who, glared at him. Obi-Wan glanced at them both, then back to me.

"Is this true?"

"Yes, Master Obi-Wan," I said meekly. "I—I wasn't trying to kill him! I just—"

He let go of my shawl, and turned off my light saber, bending down so that he was face-to-face with me.

"What's your name?"

"Nakomi Swift."

"I've heard about you from the other Jedi. They say that you're promising. That the only one with more control over the force than you is young Skywalker."

"Master Anakin?" I blinked. "I...I don't think I'm better than him, Master."

"I didn't say you were."

I waited in awkward silence as his dark blue eyes flicked over my face.

"What did you feel when you attacked Hesid, Nakomi?"

"I felt angry."

"Did you hate him?"

I glanced at Hesid. I remembered his remarks to me, his speculations about Aayla's fate. "Yes."

"You let those emotions rule you, didn't you."

It wasn't a question. "Yes, Master."

"Are you aware that that is the path to the Dark Side?"

I couldn't suppress a shudder of horror. The Dark Side was something that we speculated about after lights out, trying to scare each other. No padawan worth her light saber was disturbed by it any more at my age. But try as I might, it still got to me. The idea that there was another side of the force, a darker one, one that could turn a Jedi into a monster...

"Y-yes, Master. I'm sorry, Master. It won't happen again."

"No." Obi-Wan was still studying me. "I'm sure it won't."

"May I...may I have my light saber back now, Master Obi-Wan?"

"I'm afraid not, Nakomi." He stood up, and turned me around, placing a hand between my shoulder blades. "Come with me."


	3. Chapter 3

The lifepod was empty. It looked like whoever had been inside had forced their way out; two sets of tracks led out through the Jundland. One vaguely human and one obviously robotic. Someone and their droid servant? Why on Tatooine had they gone _that _way? It was in the exact opposite direction of civilization; they were going to die out there, unless they were Sandpeople or familiar with the desert. And that wasn't very likely.

I walked back to the Landspeeder. Before climbing in, I checked the fuel gauge and frowned. There wasn't a lot left. Maybe enough to make it out to the Lars farm and then back to Dima and I's home, but if I went driving around the desert in search of a couple of strangers, I'd end up stranded. With no water, no food, and no shelter. If I made it back alive, I'd be sunburned and hallucinating, with my eyelids too parched to blink and my tongue swollen in my mouth. Dima would kill me if I didn't die shaking in my bed, and on my rare trips into Anchorhead, I had seen people who survived those kinds of ordeals. You came back "sun-touched," as they called it, and I was crazy enough without voices in my head telling me to go back to the dune sea and find what I had lost.

But if I came back with water, Dima might just forgive me.

I hated to leave. After all, the Force had pushed me towards this place; the people in the pod must have been important. But they'd be dead by nightfall. And I had learned long ago that the Force had its own purposes for doing things—this couldn't have been for my well-being.

I climbed into the Landspeeder and headed for the Lars farm. When I arrived, I saw that I wasn't the only visitor; a Sandcrawler, surrounded by chittering Jawas and several dozen droids was parked a ways away from the house. The droids were being examined by two men with their backs to me, whom I ignored. I stood on the edge of one of the vaporator pits and peered in.

"Beru?"

"Nakomi!" the woman in the pit called, standing up and smiling. "We've been expecting you."

Dima and I's consumption of water was practically like clockwork.

"One moment, I'll be right up. Owen's getting us a couple of droids, one of our old ones broke down..."

I glanced over at where Owen was talking to a humanoid golden droid, evidently discussing its functions with it. It didn't look like he'd be done anytime soon, but I could do business with Beru.

"Alright, come with me." She led me to one of the storage sheds, buried underground, and began carrying out large plastic containers. I helped her load them into the Landspeeder. "How much do you want?"

"That depends on how much money I have..." I reached for the coin purse on my belt, and suddenly, froze. I had forgotten to bring any money with me when I left the house, because I hadn't expected to be coming here...

Beru must have read the expression on my face, because she smiled kindly and took my hand.

"It's alright, we'll give you enough to last a couple of days," she said gently. "You can just pay twice as much next time."

I nodded, grateful, and hefted another water jug. And then I stumbled, dropping it as my hand went to my head. It felt like I couldn't breathe. I tore off my helmet and sank to my knees, gulping down lungfuls of scorching desert air. The sand spun beneath me.

"Nakomi." I felt Beru's hand on my back, steadying me. "What's wrong?"

"Don't feel good," I grunted, tucking my head between my knees. Maybe I should have partaken of the food and water that Dima had set beside me before I ran off.

"Just sit there, honey. Luke! Are you done over there yet?"

"In a minute, Aunt Beru," someone else called. The voice was young, male, and strangely familiar. I assumed that it was Beru's nephew.

"Luke, take these two over to the garage, would you? I want you to have both of them cleaned up before dinner," Owen said of the droids that he must have decided to buy. I heard him walking over to me.

"But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters..." It sounded like Luke was trailing after him. I couldn't get over how familiar his voice sounded.

"You can waste time with your friends when your chores are done. Beru, what's wrong with her?"

Owen crouched down next to me, and Beru removed her hand.

"I don't know. She says she doesn't feel good. It might be heat exhaustion."

"Someone who's lived in the desert? Not likely."

"Luke, you'll have to drive her back to Dima's." Beru addressed her nephew.

"Well, do you want me to clean up these droids or take her back? Make up your mind."

"It'll be dark soon." Owen hauled me to my feet, steadying me when I almost fell over. "She can stay with us tonight. Here, Luke, help her into the garage with you; it's cooler in there."

Muttering something under his breath, Luke slung my left arm over his shoulders and held me up. He had to practically drag me inside; I hate to say it, but even through my haze of trying not to faint I noticed how strong he was. How well-built.

"There, you can sit there. Just try not to get in my way." He dumped my unceremoniously onto a crate that evidently functioned as a chair. Just how he thought I'd get in his way was beyond me. "What's your name again?"

"Nakomi—" I raised my head, intending to look him in the eye and give him a tired smile, but the sight of his face plunged my internal organs into a bucket of ice water. I leapt backwards, knocking over the crate, and pressed my back against the wall, one hand held out in front of me in self-defense.

"What the—what's wrong?" Luke, looking mildly alarmed, walked towards me. I flexed my palm, and he stumbled backwards, eyes going wide with shock.

"Stay away from me, you monster," I snarled.

"What are you _talking _about?"

"You—you killed—" Slowly, I let my hand drop. The hair was wrong. And the eyes. The shape of the chin was slightly different. There was definitely something horrifically familiar in his face, but...

Luke was not _him. _

The boy in front of me was not my enemy. In fact, he would have made a good ally, had I not just made an utter idiot of myself. What if he supported the Empire? What if he was a spy? He knew what I could do, thanks to my shoving him. What if he told someone important that there was a girl who could use the Force on Tatooine?

I shuddered at the thought of Imperial troops showing up to tear me limb-from-limb and slowly sank into a sitting position, shaking. Luke stayed where he was, examining me like I was crazy. Maybe I was. Maybe I am.

"Ma'am, are you quite alright?" the golden droid asked, sounding concerned. I glanced at it.

"I'm fine. I just—" I turned my gaze to Luke. "I thought you were someone else."

"Who?"

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter."

"Well...alright." Reluctantly, he turned away from me. "I'd better get these droids cleaned up."

"Good idea, sir," the gold droid said promptly. "May I say that I have a severe case of dust contamination, I can barely move—"

"Uh, you can call me Luke," Luke said, picking up a wrench.

"I see, sir Luke."

He laughed briefly. "Just Luke."

"Alright then. I am C3P0, human-cyborg relations, and this is my counterpart, R2D2."

The smaller of the two droids beeped in a friendly way, and Luke nodded to it. C3P0 turned to me again.

"And what would you like me to call you by, ma'am?"

"It doesn't matter, you're not mine." I stood up and sat back down on the crate. "But my name's Nakomi Swift."

"And what is your relation to master Luke?" the droid continued. "Are you two lovers?"

"What?" Luke exclaimed at the same time that I said, "I've never even really met him before now."

"I see."

"You—you just sit over there," he muttered, gesturing C3P0 over to another crate. "Here, R2, I'll start with you."

He started working, cleaning out the little robot's connectors. I watched the blush fade from his cheeks and a relaxed look come over his face; this was obviously his element.

"You got a lot of carbon scoring here," Luke observed as he worked. "Looks like you boys have seen a lot of action."

"With all we've been through, sometimes I'm amazed that we're in as good condition as we are, what with the Rebellion and all," C3P0 answered.

Luke dropped the tool that he had been using, and I started.

"You know about the Rebellion against the Empire?"

"That's how we came to be in your service, if you take my meaning, sir," C3P0 said. R2D2 beeped in agreement.

"The—the Rebellion is here?" I asked.

"Well, _near _here. Not here specifically."

"Have you been in many battles?" Luke inquired, an eager gleam in his eyes.

"Several, I think. Actually, there's not much to tell. I'm not much more than an interpreter, and not very good at telling stories. Well, not at making them interesting, anyways."

"That's okay, I don't really feel like hearing about war," I told him.

"What? Why not?" Luke glanced at me.

"I've had enough violence to last me a lifetime." I avoided his eyes.

"What was it? I know that you and your mom live out in the sticks, but I've heard that the Sandpeople leave you alone."

"It wasn't them."

"Then who—"

"Master Luke, if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, you're going to go right through R2's central processor!" C3P0 said in alarm. The farm boy hastily returned his attention to his work as R2 beeped reproachfully.

"Sorry. Hmm...well, my little friend, you've got something jammed in here real good. Were you on a cruiser, or..."

Whatever it was abruptly came out, sending Luke sprawling. I stood up to help him, but was distracted by what the removal of the thing had triggered. A wavering blue hologram of a beautiful young woman in a flowing dress. The look on her face was distressed, afraid, angry.

"Help me, Obi-Wan," she said, her voice hitching electronically. "You're my only hope."

"What's this?" Luke gasped, scrambling to his feet. But I wasn't paying attention to him.

"Obi-Wan," I whispered. "Obi-Wan..."


	4. Chapter 4

_ He is going to kill me. _The thought was matter-of-fact, cool and calm in my mind. I had accepted it. In fact, I was actually almost relieved by it. I had felt as if I were in limbo for some time, waiting for my master to come back, unable to leave, unable to finish my training. This broke the monotony. An execution freed me. I didn't even stop to consider the implications of death.

"Where are we going, Master?" I asked Obi-Wan without looking up at him. My voice trembled slightly, and I prayed that he didn't notice it.

"To your master," he replied. "Aayla Securum, right?"

He was going to have Aayla do it? That seemed almost cruel, to make a Jedi sacrifice her own padawan. Though maybe he thought it crueler to carry it out himself and then present the news to her. It didn't matter, anyway; my master wasn't here.

"She's on Felucia," I said. Obi-Wan stopped and stared at me.

"What?"

"She was sent there to go after the Separatist droids."

"You're joking."

"No, Master."

He appeared to be deep in thought for a moment, then sighed. It sounded as if all of the weariness and resignation of the entire population of the galaxy was contained in that one exhalation.

"I suppose I'll have to take you with me, then."

"With you where?"

He hesitated. "To Kamino."

_"Where?" _

"Listen, young Nakomi, it's a distant place, a secret place. You mustn't ever tell anyone about it, understood? You shouldn't even be coming with me, but...I see no other way."

I thought I knew what he was thinking. There was no other way to give me a silent and peaceful demise. This Kamino, I had never heard of it, but it must be...I couldn't even will the thought into my head.

We walked out onto the landing platform, where a Starfighter waited, as well as another Jedi with dark skin and a serious expression. His frown deepened when he saw me.

"Master Obi-Wan, why is this youngling with you?" he asked. I shrank beneath his gaze.

"She'll be accompanying me, at the request of her master," Obi-Wan replied. "Master Aayla is currently away, and does not wish for her padawan to remain within the Temple in her absence."

"But you told me yourself that this mission is too dangerous to waste more than one Jedi on," the man said. "Why are you bringing a child?"

Obi-Wan glanced at me. "This is Nakomi Swift."

A flicker of recognition danced in the dark-skinned man's eyes.

"I don't think it would be in her best interests to be left alone at the moment," he continued. "I see no other option but to bring her with me, Master Mace."

Mace opened his mouth, as if to volunteer to keep an eye on me, but then closed it. All of the Jedi were far too busy to be worried about looking after another's padawan.

"Be wary," he finally said. "This disturbance in the Force is growing stronger."

"I'm more concerned for my padawan," Obi-Wan replied. I assumed that he was talking about Anakin; I was temporarily forgotten. "He is not ready to be on his own."

"He has exceptional skills. The Council is confident in its decision, Obi-Wan. If the prophecy is true, he will be the one to bring balance to the Force."

_Prophecy? What prophecy?_

"But he still has much to learn," he argued. "And his abilities have made him...well...arrogant. I realize now what you and Master Yoda knew from the beginning...the boy was too old to start the training and..."

He hesitated. I watched him closely, as did Mace.

"There's something else?" he asked.

"Master, he should not have been given this assignment. I'm afraid Anakin won't be able to protect the Senator," Obi-Wan admitted.

"Why?"

"He has a...an emotional connection with her. It's been there since he was a boy. Now he's confused...distracted."

_Maybe because his master left him to fend for himself. _I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Anakin.

"Obi-Wan, you must have faith that he will take the right path," Mace said gently. Obi-Wan bent down and picked me up, prompting a slight cry, and placed me in the cockpit of the Starfighter. He climbed up behind me, and I scooted out of the way, crouching in the cramped space behind the chair.

"Has Master Yoda gained any insight into whether or not this war will come about?"

"Probing the Dark Side is a dangerous process. He could be in seclusion for days... May the Force be with you."

_The Dark Side. _Yoda was using it? How was what I had done so wrong, then? Why had it warranted extermination? Simply because I was so young?

"And you," Obi-Wan said grimly, pulling the bubble canopy down. "Nakomi. Do you have enough room back there?"

"Yes, Master," I lied, attempting to fold my legs beneath me.

"Good, because it's going to be a very long flight."

I sighed, pressing my cheek to the cold floor as the engine vibrated. It both surprised and touched me that he cared so much for the comfort of a doomed child.

"Nakomi."

A gentle hand touched my back, and I started awake. Immediately, I winced at the intense pain in my joints. Where was I? In the dormitories? No, it didn't feel like it...it was too dark...I had no room...what was going on?

Through some complicated maneuvering, I managed to sit up, and gazed into the concerned face of Master Obi-Wan. Memory rushed back to me, and the knowledge of my fate settled like a stone into the pit of my stomach.

"You barely fit there," he said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I just shook my head, and he sighed. "Alright, well, we've arrived. This is Tipoca. Come on."

He helped me out of the space that I had occupied for who-only-knew how many hours, and then retracted the canopy of the Starfighter. Rain poured into the cockpit, and I winced. Obi-Wan held his robes over me, keeping me dry, while he rummaged beneath the seat. Finally, he pulled out a bundle of brown cloth and handed it to me.

"This was Anakin's," he said. "It may be a little big, but it's better than nothing."

He helped me down, keeping a hand between my shoulder blades as we walked across the platform towards a tower-like structure. The wind tore at us, and I noticed that we were on a platform above an angry-looking sea. Was all of Kamino covered in water?

A door slid open, bathing us in light so bright that I had to squint. Obi-Wan took his hood off, and I copied him. A tall, benevolent figure moved towards us.

"Welcome to Tipoca City, Master Jedi," it said in a soft, soothing voice. "We were not expecting you to bring your padawan."

"She's not mine," he hastily corrected the alien. "She belongs to another. At the moment, she is simply my companion."

"I understand."

"May I inquire as to your name?"

"Jaun We, Master. Everything is ready. The Prime Minister expects you."

I blinked as I accompanied Obi-Wan inside. Prime Minister? What was going on here?

"I'm...expected?" he asked warily. Jaun We bobbed her head.

"Of course! He is anxious to see you. After all these years, we were beginning to think you weren't coming. Now, please, this way! Watch your step, small one, these floors are slick when wet..."

"Master," I whispered as soon as the alien's attention was focused on something else. "What are we doing here?"

"I wish I had an answer to that question," he replied. I glanced at him in disbelief.

"But I thought—I thought—"

He must have read my expression, for his face tightened in sorrow. "You thought I was bringing you here to punish you?"

I nodded, embarrassed.

"Nakomi, that's not...why...it is not my...never mind." He looked away from me. "That is not the way padawans atone for their acts. Besides, you aren't even my apprentice; it's not my place to discipline you."

"I understand, Master." I just felt silly now.

"May I present Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino," Jaun We said as we entered another room. A taller, sturdier version of her rose from a crystal chair and approached us, smiling gently. "And this is Jedi Master..."

"Obi-Wan," Obi-Wan said.

"Please..." Lama Su said in a deeper voice than Jaun We, gesturing to a chair. I realized that we must be in the presence of a male. As Obi-Wan sat, the Prime Minister smiled apologetically. "I'm very sorry, we were expecting only one of you. Jaun We will fetch a seat for your padawan."

"She's not mine, I'm simply holding her for a friend," Obi-Wan replied. Lama Su laughed briefly before returning to his own chair. Jaun We slipped silently out of the room, and I stood respectfully beside the Jedi, my hands folded within the sleeves of my robe.

"I trust you are going to enjoy your stay," Lama Su told us. "We are most happy that you have arrived at the best part of the season."

"You make me feel most welcome," Obi-Wan said carefully.

"And now to business. You will be delighted to hear we are on schedule. Two hundred thousand units are ready, with another million well on the way."

"That is...good news." From the tone of his voice, I could tell that he knew just as much about this as I did. Perhaps less.

At that moment, Jaun We reentered with a chair and placed it behind me. It looked to be carved of violet crystal.

"A pretty perch for a pretty creature," she said, smiling at me. I smiled back, uncertainly. Lama Su waited until she had left before he continued.

"Please tell your Master Sifo-Dyas that we have every confidence his order will be met on time and in full. He is well, I hope?"

"I'm sorry, Master...?" Obi-Wan looked utterly perplexed.

"Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas. He's still a leading member of the Jedi Council, is he not?" Some emotion flickered in Lama Su's dark eyes, but they were too alien for me to identify it.

"Oh, yes. Sifo-Dyas. Of course."

Lama Su rose. "You must be anxious to inspect the units for yourself."

"That's why I'm here," Obi-Wan replied, copying him. "Come along, Nakomi."

We were led through a maze of pristine hallways, and finally outside onto a balcony. I flinched at the storm and flipped the hood of my robe up. Obi-Wan did the same. The Prime Minister, seemingly unaffected by the harsh conditions, beamed down into the courtyard that our balcony was suspended above.

Thousands of what looked like soldiers, all wearing identical black-and-white armor, marched in perfect unison. I felt my knees go weak.

"Magnificent, aren't they?" Lama Su asked proudly. Obi-Wan nodded slowly.


	5. Chapter 5

** Captain Phantom here. I've resorted to writing in bold so that the author's notes can be distinguished from the rest of the story, a problem that I noticed after I had uploaded the first chapter but have had no desire to correct up to this point. I would just like to request that anyone who reads this review it—is my main character believable? Is she well-rounded? Even if it is your personal opinion that Nakomi is a Mary-Sue, I beg you to review. I just want some feedback. A few other questions I would appreciate you answering: Is my voice when writing as Nakomi consistent? Are the canon characters in character? And what do you think of the premise? Thank you for your time. On with the story. **

—**Captain Phantom, commander of Luna's Army**

"What?" Luke glanced at me, getting to his feet. I was focused on the R2 unit, panic and longing warring for dominance inside me. That name. The one that I hadn't heard for seventeen years, other than in my nightmares. Honestly, I wasn't sure how to feel. Was he alive? I had thought that all of the Jedi were dead. And how did this woman know about him?

R2D2 spouted off a series of beeps, rather reluctantly. C3P0 turned to him, and I realized that he must be the smaller robot's only means of speaking to organic creatures.

"What is that?" he asked incredulously, pointing to the hologram. "Sir Luke asked you a question! What is that?"

"Nakomi, do you know who she's talking about?" Luke asked. I rapidly shook my head.

"No."

C3P0, having finished listening to his smaller counterpart, interrupted us as the woman in the hologram repeated the sentence over and over. "R2 says it's nothing, sir. Merely a malfunction. Old data. Pay it no mind."

Luke momentarily tore his attention away from me, crouching in order to get a better look at the hologram. "Who is she? She's beautiful."

"I'm afraid I'm not quite sure, sir..." C3P0 began. The hologram hitched, and the audio looped.

"Help me, Obi-Wan..."

I twitched involuntarily, wrestling my memories down.

"See? You _definitely _know who this Obi-Wan person is!"

"No, I don't—I'd better go inside." I turned away from him and walked towards the door that led to the house. Luke grabbed my upper arm, spinning me around to face him. I was shocked at how strong he was. Yes, I was older than him, but he was taller, and male. And he probably hadn't had to deal with the stress, malnutrition, and danger of my life.

"Just what is going on with you?" he demanded. "First you treat me like some sort of dangerous criminal, then you—I don't even know what you did, it felt like you pushed me. And now this? Who is Obi-Wan? And who's that woman?" He pointed to the hologram, which was repeating again.

"I told you, I thought you were someone else. The name Obi-Wan sounds familiar, I'm not sure why, and I've never seen _her _before in my life." I jerked out of his grip, backing away. Life in the desert and past experience had made me feral, unwilling to trust anyone. Especially not this boy who bore such resemblance to the monster that stalked me even now.

He scrutinized me, and I held his gaze, trying to calm my rapid heartbeat. "Why don't you trust me?"

It was such an open question that I was completely disarmed. Trust? It was a concept that had died for me seventeen years ago. A man that I had been taught to respect and look up to slaughtering children in front of me, the soldiers that had been sent to keep us safe shooting my best friend, a master who promised she'd come back for me disappearing. I clenched my hands into fists and closed my eyes, wishing myself anywhere but here, where I was surrounded with reminders of my past. Why is it such a difficult thing to shed where you came from?

"Maybe because I just met you about twenty minutes ago," I spit. "Maybe because you grabbed me. Maybe because you're just a moisture farmer and far too simple-minded to—"

"I think that this woman in the hologram was a passenger on our last voyage," C3P0 interrupted hastily, in an obvious attempt to diffuse the situation. "A person of some importance, sir—I believe. Our captain was attached to..."

Luke turned away from me, but not before I saw the tight, angry expression on his face. I felt no remorse. I didn't know him, and honestly, I felt that he had deserved it for pressuring me to tell him the truth that could get me killed.

"Is there more to this recording?" Crouching down again, he reached for R2D2, who whistled in alarm and trundled backwards.

"Behave yourself, R2!" C3P0 scolded. "You're going to get us in trouble. It's alright, you can trust him. He's our new master."

Even though I could have gone through the door at this point, left, had dinner with the Larses and then gone home the next day, and so never experienced the events that inevitably followed that moment, I didn't. I hate to say it, but I was curious, and that somehow won out over my common sense.

R2D2 beeped indignantly, and C3P0 gave a whistling sigh that conveyed many years of putting up with the smaller robot. "He says he's the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi, a resident of these parts. And it's a private message for him. Quite frankly, sir, I don't know what he's talking about. Our last master was Captain Antilles, but with what we've been through, this little R2 unit _has _become a bit eccentric..."

"Ben Kenobi!" I exclaimed. Luke glanced at me warily, nodding.

"Yeah, it must be him that they're talking about."

It was possible that this Obi-Wan was not the one that I knew. It wasn't as if it was a common name, but in a galaxy as large as ours, I supposed that another person might bear it. But then again, I had never actually known Master Obi-Wan's surname. He and Ben Kenobi might be one and the same. The thought that I might have been living so close to a Jedi for so many years sent a chill down my spine. Especially this Jedi.

Wouldn't he have sensed me and sought me out? Wouldn't I have sensed him? But then I remembered that this morning was the first time I had had any true contact with the Force for a very long time. Maybe...we had just been invisible to each other.

"I beg your pardon, sir and madam, but do you two know what he's talking about?" C3P0 asked, breaking into my thoughts.

"Well, I don't know anyone named Obi-Wan—" (here Luke shot me a look that I turned away from) "—but old Ben lives out beyond the dune sea. He's kind of a strange old hermit. Isn't he out near you and Dima, Nakomi?"

"No," I said flatly.

"Well, anyway, he's pretty far away from the settlement. I don't think he likes people." Luke was gazing at the holographic woman with a faraway look on his face. I glanced up at the ceiling, sighing. Padawans, moisture farmers—when it came to boys, they were all the same, no matter their occupation. "I wonder who she is. It sounds like she's in trouble. I'd better play back the whole thing."

R2D2 beeped at C3P0, who nodded and turned to Luke. "He says that the restraining bolt has short-circuited his recording system. He suggests that if you remove the bolt, he might be able to play back the entire recording."

"Huh?" Reluctantly, the farm boy tore his eyes away from the woman. "Oh, yeah, well, I guess you're too small to run away on me if I take this off! Okay."

He selected another tool and began prying off the bolt as I walked around to R2D2's other side. Luke looked at me, a suspicious expression on his face.

"What are you doing?"

"Helping you," I said in the same flat voice that I had used before. "Just in case the droid gets any ideas."

He raised an eyebrow. "Worried I'm too simple-minded to keep an R2 unit from running away?"

I said nothing. Eventually, he returned to his work, and managed to get the bolt off. Almost immediately, the hologram disappeared.

"What happened?" Luke asked. For some reason, I felt the same angry confusion that was present in his voice. "Play the entire message."

R2D2 beeped apologetically. C3P0 shook his head in disbelief.

"What do you mean, what message? The one you're carrying in your rusty innards!"

I examined the droid closely. "I've never seen one of these things that can lie before."

It beeped in an uncomfortable manner, shuffling its treads.

"Listen, you said that if I—" Luke began, but Beru interrupted him from within the house.

"Luke? Luke! Is Nakomi feeling better? Bring her inside, it's time for dinner!"

I nudged the R2 unit with the toe of my boot. It whistled at me in indignation, wheeling away. C3P0 stopped it before it could leave the garage.

"All right, all right, we'll be right there, Aunt Beru," Luke called. He gestured for me to follow him. "We'd better go."

"I'm sorry, sir, but he appears to have picked up a slight flutter," C3P0 apologized, slowly letting go of R2D2. When the smaller robot made no attempt to escape, he relaxed as much as his design allowed.

"Just...see what you can do with him," the farm boy sighed, tossing the bolt onto a nearby tool bench. "I'll be right back."

I waited until he was gone, then walked back to the two robots and crouched down in front of R2D2. His lights blinked cryptically at me.

"How do you know Obi-Wan?" I asked in a low voice. He beeped.

"He...well, he wants to know how _you _know Obi-Wan, madam," C3P0 translated. I narrowed my eyes.

"I don't have to explain myself to a droid."

More beeping, this time sounding almost impudent.

"R2D2! Take that back immediately, it was most uncalled for."

"What did he say?"

"Madam, I cannot in good conscience repeat it."

"Tell me." I stood up, locked C3P0's gaze with my own. I had no idea if this trick would work on droids or not, but...

"He said that he does not have to explain himself to a pompous, irritating hermit's child."

I resisted the urge to kick R2D2 as I glared down at him. He had no discernible eyes, so I couldn't influence him. There seemed to be no way to find out just what his connection to the Jedi was. So I turned around and went inside, ignoring the insistent beeping behind me and C3P0 murmuring, "Why, yes, I do agree that she's a bit odd..."


	6. Chapter 6

"Master, what's going on here?" I whispered to Obi-Wan as Lama Su led us back through the halls, towards something else that we "simply had to see."

"Just keep quiet, and be ready to run," he responded in a low voice. I obeyed, feeling more frightened than I ever had before. How ironic—my first excursion out of the Temple in years and it was to this place, where even the full-fledged Jedi accompanying me was uneasy. I noticed his hand routinely straying to his lightsaber, as if he wanted to be prepared if danger came our way, and longed for my own weapon.

We suddenly emerged onto a catwalk suspended high above a huge room, filled with human men. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that they all looked exactly the same. Olive skin, short black hair, relatively handsome, twenty years old. They were all dressed in black. The level of chatter that one would normally expect from young soldiers simply wasn't present; they spoke to each other, but there was no laughter, and almost no change in their expressions. It was eerie.

"We modified their genetic structure to make them less independent than the original host," Lama Su was saying. I tore my eyes away from the strange men beneath me and focused on his voice, just in case he said something important. "As a result, they are totally obedient, taking any order without question."

_Altered drastically to be perfect soldiers. _For some reason, the thought disturbed me. I knew that both the Republic and the Separatists that it was battling programmed droids to take orders and so be better soldiers, but somehow, this was different.

"And who was the original host?" Obi-Wan inquired, his calm expression betraying none of the infectious anxiety radiating from him.

"A bounty hunter called Jango Fett. We felt that a Jedi would be a better choice, but Sifo-Dyas hand-picked Fett himself."

We had momentarily stopped, and I stood on the lowest bar of the delicate-looking railing, clutching the top one and peering down at the soldiers. One looked up at me, but there was no flicker of surprise on his face at seeing a Padawan staring at him. In fact, he gave no sign that he had seen me at all. As I took in just how many of them they were, I reflected on what Lama Su had said. About wanting to use a Jedi. I imagined these hundreds of strange creatures, emotionless and practically without a soul, able to use the Force. I shuddered.

"Where is this bounty hunter now?" Obi-Wan asked. Even without probing his mind (which would get me punished anyway), I thought I knew what he was thinking. News of his and Anakin's run-in with a bounty hunter who had attempted to kill Senator Amidala had spread very quickly through the Order. Considering how most Jedi felt about secrets, I could only imagine how fast it had gotten around to everyone else.

"Oh, we keep him here," Lama Su said dismissively. "After a few hundred thousand clones, the genetic pattern starts to fade, so we take another sample. He lives here, but he's free to come and go as he pleases."

We left the room, and once again found ourselves in a proper hallway instead of on a catwalk. I tried to rein in the relief that I felt. It didn't do for a Jedi to have a fear of heights.

"Apart from his pay, which is considerable, Fett demanded only one thing—an unaltered clone for himself. Curious, isn't it?" Lama Su continued. We had entered an area that I guessed was the barracks; men, identical to those I had seen in the previous room, were climbing into glass tubes. As soon as they were inside, their eyes closed and they relaxed. They seemed more like droids to me than actual human beings. But then again, based on what the Prime Minister had said, they _were _more like droids than humans.

"Unaltered?" Obi-Wan looked mildly intrigued.

"Pure genetic replication. No tampering with the structure to make it more docile...and no growth acceleration..."

"I would like to meet this—Nakomi, come away from there!"

I had approached one of the tubes containing a clone who was not yet asleep, and was tapping on the glass. He regarded me coolly, his expression unreadable. I held his gaze. Was that a flicker of intelligence in his dark eyes?

Obi-Wan grabbed the back of my robe with the Force and dragged me over to my original position beside him. Lama Su made a high-pitched trilling noise that I interpreted as a laugh.

"Calm yourself, Master Obi-Wan. The child can't harm them."

"Perhaps not," he muttered, giving me a look that told me I'd be wise to stay by his side from now on. "As I was saying, I'd like to meet this Jango Fett."

"I would be most happy to arrange it for you. Come." Lama Su glided down the hall, and we followed. I glanced over my shoulder, at the clone whose tube I had been tapping on. He still wasn't asleep. In fact, he was staring at me, something almost like curiosity in his face. Very hesitantly, I smiled.

The clone smiled back.

*!*

"You mentioned growth acceleration..." Obi-Wan began. We were walking through a classroom full of clones who were around my age. None of them seemed the slightest bit interested by us. I stopped by one, examining him. A full mouth, soft-looking hair, eyes with thick lashes. A beautiful ten-year-old boy, by any species' standards. And yet there was no flicker of consciousness in his face. Even when I waved a hand in front of him, he remained fixated on the droid at the front of the classroom. It appeared to be going over battle strategies.

"Oh, yes, it's essential. Otherwise, a mature clone would take a lifetime to grow," Lama Su said. "Now, we can do it in half the time. Those items you saw outside were started ten years ago, when Sifo-Dyas first placed the order, and they're already mature..."

"And these?"

"About five years ago."

Frustrated at being ignored, I grabbed the boy's shoulder and shook it. I had expected him to remain indifferent, so I was startled when he turned to me and said, "Yes?" in a low voice.

"I—I'm Nakomi," I stammered. His expression didn't change. "Who're you?"

"I don't have a name yet." There was no emotion in his voice.

"That—"

"Nakomi!" Once again, Obi-Wan dragged me away from the clone, looking exasperated. "This is the last time! Stay away from them. Do you understand?"

I nodded meekly. Once again, Lama Su laughed, but he didn't reprimand the Jedi. As we left the classroom, I looked at the boy, hoping for the same interest that the older clone had displayed in me. But he was watching the droid again.

As we strolled through a hallway lined by shelves full of embryos in glass spheres, the Prime Minister once again felt the need to inform us of the many properties of clones.

"They're immensely superior to droids, capable of independent thought and action."

_Not much, from what I've seen._

"Hm. Very impressive." Obi-Wan didn't seem to be paying much attention. He was looking at one of the embryos, and I copied him, feeling disgusted and intrigued at the same time. This was what humans looked like before they were born? They were like Felucian frogs, but smaller and pink.

"I'd hoped you would be pleased."

The Jedi looked away from the embryo. "Tell me, Prime Minister, when my...Master Sifo-Dyas first contacted you, did he say the order was for...himself...or...?"

"Himself?" Lama Su seemed surprised. "Of course not. This army is for the Republic, is it not?"

I started at the same time Obi-Wan exclaimed, "The Republic?"

Seemingly oblivious to our shock, Lama Su nodded. "We are also very much against this Count Dooku and his secessionist movement. We are proud to be of help to the Republic."

I looked at the Jedi, hoping that my confusion and surprise was conveyed sufficiently by my expression. He met my eyes, and I knew that he shared my feelings.

"Yes, we...appreciate your immense efforts here," Obi-Wan said formally. Lama Su smiled, as if he expected nothing less.

"I believe that you have been shown the highlights of our facility, and it has grown late. Jaun We will show you to your quarters."

With that, Lama Su turned and walked away in the graceful way that his lean build lent him. We barely had to wait a moment before the alien that had shown us into the building appeared and led us to an entirely different section. She opened the door to a spacious room with a window that overlooked the stormy ocean, making an apologetic noise as I noticed that there was only one bed.

"I'm very sorry, Mistress and Master Jedi, but we were not expecting two of you," she said. "I shall bring a cot for your Padawan, Master Obi-Wan."

"She's not my—" he began, and then appeared to simply give up. "Oh, very well then. Thank you."

Jaun We nodded. "I have arranged for you to meet Jango Fett in the morning. Sleep well." She closed the door.

Immediately, Obi-Wan's polite, calm demeanor dissolved. His stress was written plainly on his face.

"Nakomi, stay where you are," he ordered. I obeyed, and watched as he checked the room thoroughly. The seal of the window, under the bed, in the corners, the air vent...once he had ascertained that no one was watching us, he pulled out his comlink. Assuming that it was now safe to move, I walked over and sat on the bed.

"R4, R4..." he said tensely. A beep came through the speaker. "R4, relay this, 'scramble code five,' to Coruscant: care of 'the old folks' home.'"

A beep of confirmation greeted his words. Obi-Wan switched the comlink off, then sat beside me with a heavy sigh.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I never should have brought a Padawan with me. I don't know what I was _thinking..._"

"If you had left me, I would have killed Hesid tonight," I said calmly. I had meant the words as a comfort to him, but as soon as they were out of my mouth, I realized just how threatening they sounded. And just how much the flat tone of my voice frightened me.

He glanced at me, an unreadable emotion in his eyes, then shook his head and muttered to himself. "So this is what happens to a Padawan without her Master's guidance. Anakin..."

"He's a legend, Master Obi-Wan. He'll be fine."

The Jedi sighed again. "Somehow, I don't think so."


	7. Chapter 7

Luke was waiting to show me to his family's dining room when I came out of the garage, even though I could see his aunt placing bowls of food on the table through a doorway. He raised an eyebrow at my lateness.

"Did you get lost?"

I ignored him, walking up to the table, nodding in response to Beru's questions about if I was feeling better or not, and sitting where she directed me. Luke sank into a chair next to me, the insults that I had hurled at him obviously forgotten.

"Did you get anything else out of those two droids?"

I shook my head. His proximity was making me extremely uncomfortable.

Owen sat down as Beru filled our glasses with a blue liquid that Dima didn't like me to buy on my trips into Anchorhead. I took a sip, and was surprised by its sweetness.

"You know, I think that that R2 unit we bought might have been stolen," Luke said casually to his uncle, placing several spoonfuls of red grain on his plate.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, I stumbled across a recording while I was cleaning him. He says he belongs to someone named Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Owen's eyes widened briefly. My gaze snapped to him, and seeing the twitching muscles in his jaw and the sudden increase in his breathing, I realized that the name meant something to him. I resisted the urge to call him out on it, though, because that would just give Luke another opportunity to question me. Speaking of Luke, he was continuing.

"I thought he might have meant old Ben. Do you know what he's talking about?" The fact that he was the only one participating in the conversation didn't seem to have dawned on him yet. "Well, I wonder if he's related to Ben."

"The R2 unit?" I asked. Owen and Beru laughed a little too hard.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Luke," his uncle said, concentrating on his food.

"No, really, I think I should bring him out to Ben," he said. "It might be—"

Owen slammed his fist down on the table. I flinched.

"That old man's just a crazy old wizard," he snapped. "Tomorrow, I want you to take that R2 unit into Anchorhead and have its memory flushed. That'll be the end of it, you hear? It belongs to us now. There's no need to take it out to—"

"Owen!" Beru snapped. About halfway during his tirade, I had stood up abruptly, knocking my chair over and searching for a weapon. For a moment, the farmer's rage had reminded me a little too much of the incident from my childhood. He was a large man; I wouldn't want to be the object of his anger.

Owen muttered something under his breath about skittish hermits and then said, "I'm sorry, Nakomi."

I warily righted my chair and sat back down. As much as the outburst had terrified me, Luke seemed completely unaffected.

"But what if this Obi-Wan comes looking for R2?" he asked.

"He won't, I don't think he exists anymore," Owen replied. "He died about the same time as your father."

The farm boy became even perkier, if that was possible. "He knew my father?"

His uncle avoided his eyes. "I told you to forget it. Your only concern is to prepare the new droids for tomorrow. In the morning, I want them out on the south ridge, working out those condensers."

I scrutinized him, noticing the many signs of his discomfort. A creeping flush on his neck that wasn't from the heat, his shifting gaze, his fingers tapping nervously against the table. The subject of Luke's father, and Obi-Wan, was obviously not one that he was prepared to deal with at the moment. Which piqued my interest like nothing had for almost seventeen years.

"Yes, sir," Luke said. "I think those new droids are going to work out fine. In fact, I, uh, was also thinking about our agreement, about my staying for another season. And if these new droids do work out, I want to...transmit my—application to the Academy this year."

Shock, and a certain amount of fury, arced through me. I slammed my glass, which I had been drinking from, down on the table, ignoring the pale blue droplets that scattered over the table.

"The Academy?" I exclaimed. "What kind of scum do you think you are, wanting to become a pawn of the Empire? Have you even _thought _about this? Honestly, if you knew—"

"Nakomi..." There was a warning note in Owen's voice, something that told me it wasn't wise to speak like this in his house. But I held Luke's gaze.

"If you keep talking like that, you and Dima will wake up with Imperial Stormtroopers at your door," he responded.

"I've been waiting for them for seventeen years, it might be a relief!"

I wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out of my mouth. Why in the name of the Force had I said _that_? Of all the stupid, careless, idiotic—

"You mean the next semester before harvest?" Owen suddenly said. I felt a tremendous surge of gratitude towards him for changing the subject. It was as if nothing had ever happened.

"Sure, there's more than enough droids," Luke said cheerfully.

"Harvest is when I need you most," his uncle gently explained. "Only one more season. This year, we'll make enough on the harvest so I'll be able to hire some more hands. And then you can go to the—uh—" he glanced at me "—_place_ next year."

I watched the boy sitting next to me play with his food. It made me uncomfortable, to be privy to such a private family discussion. Beru must have understood, for she began to suggest, "Why don't we discuss this la—"

"You must understand I need you here, Luke," Owen interrupted her.

"But it's a whole 'nother year," he muttered. His childishness surprised me, but I said nothing, just took another drink of the blue liquid.

"Look, it's only one more season."

Abruptly, he stood up, pushing his plate away. I instinctively leaned away from him, but didn't abandon my meal. I hadn't eaten this well in weeks; an entire battalion of Stormtroopers wouldn't be able to separate me from the contents of my plate.

"Yeah, that's what you said last year when Biggs and Tank left."

"Where are you going?" Beru asked, obviously trying to defuse the situation. But her nephew was already walking away.

"It looks like I'm going nowhere," he shot over his shoulder. "I have to finish cleaning those droids."

I watched him vanish into the garage, then turned to Owen and Beru, who looked several years older than they had before the meal started. "He seems...unhappy."

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Nakomi," Beru sighed, beginning to gather up the dishes. "He's been a little restless lately."

I saw no reason to point out that Luke struck me as more a caged animal that was about to go stir-crazy from captivity than "a little restless." There was certainly anger in him, no doubt about that. Maybe that was why I had felt the urge to defend myself from him when I saw his face for the first time? No, the Force had ceased to inform me of things like that long ago...

"You're around his age, go talk to him," Owen suggested. I stared at him as if he had just pulled out a lightsaber and challenged me to a duel.

"I'm twelve years older than—" I began, but he just waved me in the direction of the garage. As I gave up and walked towards it, I heard him and Beru talking in low voices.

"Owen, he can't stay here forever. Most of his friends have gone. It means so much to him."

"I'll make it up to him next year. I promise."

"Luke's just not a farmer. He has too much of his father in him."

A pause.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

*!*

I found Luke talking to C3P0 over near a damaged Skyhopper. Their conversation drifted over to me as I came up behind them.

"...faulty, malfunctioning," the droid was saying. "Kept babbling about his mission."

"You're kidding!" Luke exclaimed.

"What happened?" I asked, curious despite myself. He glanced at me.

"R2D2 ran off."

"Well, he can't have gotten far. We weren't inside for very long and he has small legs."

With C3P0 and I trailing behind, he dashed outside, frantically looking around for the tiny droid. A spectacular double sunset stained the sky, but I paid it no attention. It just got depressing after a certain number of evenings spent watching it from the roof of your flimsy hideout.

"How could I be so stupid?" Luke moaned. "He's nowhere in sight. Blast it!"

"Pardon me, sir, but couldn't we go after him?" C3P0 asked. The farm boy shook his head.

"It's too dangerous with all the Sandpeople around. We'll have to wait until—"

Suddenly, he turned to me, an excited look on his face. "Nakomi!"

"What?" I asked warily.

"You and Dima! The Sandpeople leave you alone. If you're with me, then—"

"It's mostly Dima—"

"Come on, we have to hurry. Uncle Owen's going to kill me as it is."

He grabbed my wrist and towed me over to the shed where the Larses kept their Landspeeder. I dug my heels into the cooling sand, but it didn't do any good.

"Gah! Let go of me!"

He ignored me, predictably.

"Luke, is Nakomi out there with you?" Owen called from the homestead.

"Yeah."

"Well, you two had better get inside. I'm shutting the power down for tonight."

"Sure, uncle, there's just one thing I have to take care of first..."

There were two Landspeeders in the shed, mine and his. Luke let go of me, allowing me to retrieve my helmet from the front seat of my vehicle. I glared at him.

"Do you have any idea how irre—"

"Considering what you were saying about the Empire at dinner, I wouldn't talk about responsibility if I were you," he interrupted, climbing into the back of the Landspeeder. "3P0, you probably have the best night vision out of the three of us. You can drive, and I'll tell you where to go."

Despite my misgivings, I got in next to him. It wasn't as if I could go running back to the homestead and tell his family that he was going after a runaway droid. And, honestly, I wanted R2 back, too. I wanted to know what he knew about Obi-Wan.

"Ready?" Luke asked me.

"No."

We flew across the darkening desert in search of answers.


	8. Chapter 8

** Is it simply a matter of time before someone reads this? Or am I simply wasting said time? I'd prefer to believe the latter, at least until I lose my passion for this particular story. If you do read it, I beg you to review, and tell me what you think. If Nakomi needs any changes. If the storyline (which I'm trying to keep as close to canon as possible) is interesting. Please, review.**

-*!*-

"Are you ready?" Obi-Wan asked me. I had had no breakfast, and though I had bathed, I was wearing the same clothes that I had yesterday. Nonetheless, I felt better than I could ever remember feeling, especially while dormant at the temple. It was as if the blood in my veins had been replaced with pure Force energy.

"I am, Master," I said, bowing. He nodded, and we both turned to look at the door as it opened. Jaun We smiled at us.

"Come with me," she said. We followed her.

As we walked through the brightly-lit corridors, I started to feel the effects of having eaten nothing since breakfast yesterday. My legs were shaky, my head hurt, and I wanted to go back to the room and sleep, despite the fact that I had just woken up. No, more than that, I wanted to go home. Back to the Jedi Temple, where Zett was, and food...I'd probably end up dying here. I'd fall off the platform into the ocean or a clone would accidentally shoot me or something.

Obi-Wan lightly touched my shoulder, breaking me out of my misery. I glanced up at him, and he discreetly handed me something.

_My lightsaber!_

I hadn't realized how much I had missed it until it was returned to me. It felt like my right arm had been cut off, and then suddenly grafted back onto my body. Running my fingers up and down the familiar curves of the grip that my own hands had fashioned on Ilum, I looked at the Jedi out of the corner of my eye and mouthed, _Thank you. _He gave no sign of having heard me, just kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. I realized that he must believe that we were in a lot of danger, if he had given my weapon back to me after my admission last night.

After about half an hour of walking, Jaun We paused in front of a door in an isolated, tucked away part of the building. She pressed her hand against a pad next to it, and a muted bell rang.

The door opened, held by a ten-year-old boy. He was the spitting image of the boys that I had seen yesterday in the classroom, except for one thing. His expression actually changed. It was casual and open when he saw Jaun We, but when his eyes shifted to Obi-Wan, he looked downright hostile. And then his gaze fell on me, and confusion spread over his features.

"Boba, is your father here?" Jaun We asked in her lyrical voice. Boba, his eyes still fixed on me, nodded. "May we see him?"

"Sure." He held my gaze for a moment longer, then stepped to the side and allowed us into his home.

It was clean, but sparse. In that respect, it reminded me of home. I was busy admiring the huge window that looked out onto the fierce storm outside when I felt someone beside me. I glanced over to see Boba, and felt a flicker of unease when I realized that he was slightly taller than me. And just how he was looking at me.

"Dad, Jaun We's here!" he called, never looking away from me. I heard another man enter, and begin a conversation with Obi-Wan, but I wasn't paying any attention.

"What's wrong?" I asked. "Never seen a girl before?"

"A what?"

I stared at him, and then realized that he might actually have never seen a member of the opposite sex before. At least not of his species. Growing up here, with only his father, male clones, and Kaminoans for company, he wouldn't have had access to human females.

"Never mind," I said, not feeling like a lecture on the differences between genders at the moment. "Don't you...I don't know...have anything better to do than stare at me?"

"What's your name?" he asked. I drew myself up to my full height, which, to my dismay, wasn't much.

"I am Nakomi Swift, Padawan of the Jedi Order," I told him. He just regarded me with something halfway between amusement and annoyance.

"You're a Jedi."

"Almost." Never mind that I still had about ten years of training to go.

"Kinda tiny for one, aren't you?"

I folded my arms, resisted the urge to go for my lightsaber. I'd been brought here for fighting; I could only imagine what Obi-Wan would do to me if I gave into my anger and tried to kill this clone. He didn't even have anything to defend himself. I could destroy him before I'd even realized what I'd done.

"Size does not matter when it comes to Jedi," I said simply, thinking of Master Yoda, who was smaller than me and yet so much more powerful.

"Good thing for you." Before I could respond, he nodded to Obi-Wan. "Is he your Master?"

"No, he's just—it's a little complicated."

"Always is, when it comes to you people."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I could sense his feelings towards me. There was ingrained hostility and hatred, yes, probably sowed by his "father," but it was outweighed by his interest in me and his belief that someone as small and plain-looking as I was posed no threat. I wasn't sure if I hated him for thinking I was plain-looking or admired him for being able to overcome what he had been taught.

"My father told me about Jedi. Said that you always meddle in the affairs of people that just want to be left alone."

"We don't—well...not unless it's...look, can't you—"

"Boba," Jango called suddenly, breaking his "son" out of our conversation. "Close the door."

Boba moved to shut the bedroom door. Before he did, I caught a glimpse of armor scattered all over the floor. Pitted and scarred, with scorch marks, it looked like it had seen better days, but was still serviceable.

Perhaps what a bounty hunter would wear on a journey to Coruscant?

"Just what does your father do when he leaves here?" I asked Boba when he returned. He shrugged.

"I don't know. He never takes me."

I thought I detected a note of the same bitterness that I felt towards Aayla in his voice. "I am sure he has a good reason."

"Like your Master has a good reason for forcing you on another Jedi?"

My fingers twitched, but did not stray towards my lightsaber. I gazed calmly at Boba and hoped that none of the anger I felt was evident on my face.

"My Master," I began slowly, "is on Felucia, fighting for the Republic. Keeping the peace. Doing her duty, protecting innocents, waiting for the day when she can return to her Padawan. She didn't want to leave me—"

"You sure about that?"

I kept my arms folded, as much as I wanted to hit him. "Yes. I am."

He tilted his head, an emotion that I couldn't read rolling off of him. I tensed, half-expecting him to attack me, but instead, he just said, "You're weird."

I hadn't been expecting that. "_I'm _weird? You're the one who lives on a planet out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by—"

"Nakomi." Obi-Wan interrupted us. "Come."

He must have finished his conversation with Jango. I obediently turned away from Boba, glad to have a way out of a conversation that had taken a turn for the worse. Unexpectedly, he grabbed the back of my robe.

"How long are you gonna be on Kamino?" he asked me.

"I'm afraid that we are leaving right now," Obi-Wan told the clone, who let go of me. I clumsily read his emotions, expecting disappointment, finding only vague relief and indifference.

"It is not exactly heartbreaking for me, either," I muttered to him as we left the Fetts' apartment, prompting a small wave of confusion as the door closed behind us.

-*!*-

"You're going to tell your Master about this, aren't you?" Obi-Wan asked as Jaun We took us back to the landing pad, where his Starfighter was waiting. I shrugged.

"Aayla only contacts me once every few months, and the recordings are always dated. I answer every one, but I don't believe that she receives them. I don't think I'll mention this."

He glanced at me in surprise. "You'd keep a secret like this from your master?"

I immediately sensed that I had said the wrong thing, and tried to amend it. "No, of course not. I'll tell her, but I—I won't incriminate you, I promise..."

The Jedi just shook his head, looking forward with an unreadable expression on his face. "Bringing a youngling on a mission like this. The Council is going to kill me."

A model Padawan for ten years, and now it seemed like everything was going to pieces at once. At this rate, I'd be thrown out of the Order before I was thirteen.

Lama Su was waiting for us at the door outside. He nodded to Obi-Wan, who bowed respectfully.

"Tell your Council the first battalions are ready," the Prime Minister said. "And remind them that if they need more troops, we will need more time to grow them."

"I won't forget," he replied. I walked beside him, flicking my hood up and pulling my robe around myself as we entered the storm that seemed to have worsened since yesterday. I was grateful for the fact that it had been made for someone bigger than I; there was that much more fabric to protect me from the icy, stinging rain. Obi-Wan ignored the R4 unit on the small craft as it beeped in greeting, instead just opening the canopy and hastily placing me inside. He looked around, as if making sure that no one was watching us. I gazed at him warily.

"Nakomi, stay here," he told me.

"What? Where are you going, Master?"

"That doesn't matter." With that, he closed the canopy and hurried back towards the door, his robes whipping around him in the wind. It slid open and he vanished into the light inside.

_What in the name of...what does he think he's _doing_? _I looked over at the R4. Though it had no face, I thought that it seemed just as perplexed as I did. It beeped at me, the sound somehow penetrating the sealed canopy.

"Do you think I should go with him?" I asked the droid in a low voice. It beeped in a way that sounded like an affirmation. "But he's already angry with me..."

The droid whistled in an encouraging way. "Well, yes, if I help him, he might not be so mad. But what can I do? I'm a _Padawan. _You do realize that, don't you?"

It moved its legs in what I guessed was a shrug. I sighed. "I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I? He's my only way off this planet."

I pressed the button that I knew would retract the canopy and leaped out, running through the storm after the Jedi.


	9. Chapter 9

"This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea..." I chanted, my arms wrapped around the legs that I had drawn to my chest. My eyes were fixed on the small strip of desert that the Landspeeder's lights illuminated. I had originally kept the visor on my helmet down so that I wouldn't have to scream at the sight of every rock that seemingly came out of nowhere, but I had decided that it would be better to see my death coming. Much to the dismay of my fellow passengers.

"Madam, I'm terribly sorry, but that truly is distracting," C3P0 said. "Could you perhaps stop, at least until we reach our destination?"

"We're going to die." I squeezed my eyes shut, but opened them just in time to see a rock. _"LOOK OUT!"_

The vehicle swerved beautifully under the droid's control. He glared at me as well he could with artificial eyes.

"Miss Nakomi, I assure you, I am perfectly capable of driving this Landspeeder!"

"Can't you, I don't know, try to calm down?" Luke asked, tentatively taking his hands off of his ears, where he had placed them when I started shrieking.

"Calm down? We're in the dune sea, it's dark, there are rocks everywhere—_LOO—_"

He clapped his hand over my mouth before I could get going again. I would have ripped his fingers away from my mouth, but I was too busy clutching the seat so hard that my knuckles had turned white long ago.

"Is there anything you _aren't _afraid of?" he asked in exasperation, letting go of me as soon as we had gone past the rock.

"Fear is what kept me alive," I retorted without taking my eyes off of the desert. I knew that he was rolling his eyes.

"Well, it doesn't seem like you have much to live for."

"Look who's talking."

"Hey," Luke protested. "You heard my uncle, I'm going to the Ac—place in a year."

I tore my gaze away from the sand racing by beneath us long enough to glare at him. "Just—never mind." I was far too stressed to think up a witty retort at the moment.

"Sir, I believe that that is R2," C3P0 said suddenly, as a pale shape came into view. My internal organs were suddenly teleported several miles away. At least judging by the feeling in the core of my being.

"Stopstopstopstopstopstop_stop—_"

We came to a perfect halt in front of the droid, which turned to look at us in an astonished manner. Luke and C3P0 jerked forward a little; I didn't move, having braced my feet against the dashboard and pressed my back into the seat so hard that I was sure there would be an indent when I finally found the courage to leave the vehicle.

"See, Nakomi?" Luke said soothingly as C3P0 got out of the Landspeeder and launched into a tirade directed at R2. "We're alive."

"N-never ag-gain," I told him. "N-never again."

"Come on, we'd better see if R2's okay." He climbed out, taking his rifle with him, and I followed reluctantly. I felt a little better standing on solid ground with my own weapon slung over my shoulder, even though the Landspeeder was the only source of light around for miles.

"Master Luke here is your rightful owner!" C3P0 was explaining to R2D2, who was beeping feebly. "We'll have no more of this Obi-Wan Kenobi gibberish...and don't talk to me about your mission, either. You're fortunate he doesn't blast you into a million pieces right here."

"Well, come on," Luke interrupted. "It's getting late. I only hope we can get back before Uncle Owen really blows up."

"You're worried about your uncle?" I asked. "Compared to Dima, he's no threat at all! Do you know what she'll do to me when I come back tomorrow morning without even a missing limb as an excuse?"

"Yeah, but Owen'll feed me into the hydrator and make water out of me," he replied. "He's threatened to do it enough times—"

"That's nothing. Dima will—"

I stopped, surprised by what had just happened. Had I smiled? Had I, for one moment, forgotten the burden that I carried? Where I was? Just who this boy reminded me of? I did not do this. I did not forget, I did not relax, I didn't trust anyone but Dima. That was how I'd get myself killed, as she had said several years ago after the incident with Biggs. But somehow, with Luke, I had let my guard down.

"If you don't mind my saying so, sir, I think you should deactivate this little fugitive until you've gotten him back to your workshop," C3P0 said to break the awkward silence that had sprung up. He kicked R2D2 without any real malice, and the smaller droid whistled indignantly.

"No, he's not going to try anything." Luke turned back towards the Landspeeder. After a moment's hesitation, I followed him. There was no way the four of us were going to fit in there, and I was not riding outside.

Suddenly, a flurry of sound behind me made me yelp, spinning around and bringing up my rifle. Before my finger could tighten on the trigger, I saw that it was just R2, spinning rapidly in a circle with all of his lights blinking.

"What's wrong with him now?" Luke exclaimed.

"Oh my...sir, he says there are several creatures approaching from the southeast," C3P0 gasped.

The farm boy swung his own rifle up into a defense position, scanning the horizon with fear on his face. "Sandpeople! Or worse. We'd better have a look...Nakomi, you stay here."

"What?" I followed him as he started to walk away. "I'm older than you, _and _I'm a better shot! If anyone's staying here, it's you."

_"Shh."_

Annoyed at the way that he shushed me like I was a child, as well as holding his hand out behind him in an obvious 'stay' position, I hurried after him. It was eerie, being led to the top of a nearby ridge with only the stars and the faint glow given off from the two droids for light. But I didn't make a sound.

We crouched down on top of the ridge, and Luke pulled a pair of rather battered electrobinoculars from his belt. I eyed them dubiously. Even in the darkness, I could tell that they had seen better days.

"Are you certain that those—"

_"Shh!"_

He flicked a lever on the side, obviously engaging the night vision, then brought the machine to his eyes. I wasn't sure why he was being so secretive about this whole thing. The light from the Landspeeder would have attracted anything within a five-mile radius.

"Yeah, there are two banthas down there," Luke said finally, speaking of the huge beasts that the Sandpeople rode. "But I don't see any...wait a second, they're Sandpeople, all right. I can see one of them now."

"Aaah!" I sprang to my feet, instinctively bringing my rifle up to fire as a huge male Sandperson seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of us. C3P0 yelped and backed away—right off the edge of the cliff. R2D2 let out a series of beeps that sounded suspiciously like a curse.

The raider swung his enormous gaderffii down towards Luke, the only one of us who had failed to move out of the way. He barely managed to get his rifle up in time to block the blow, which shattered the barrel and rendered the weapon useless. I fired into the air as he scrambled backwards, hoping to distract the Sandperson.

"Hey!" I yelled in the guttural language of the Tusken Raiders. Dima spoke it much better than I, but I could get by—maybe. I thumped myself on the chest. "Nakomi Swift! Daughter of Dima Dunewalker? Deal, remember? Peace! No fight. Truce."

"The truce does not apply in our lands," the creature snarled, lunging for me. I wasn't fast enough to avoid him. My rifle was torn from my hands, and thrown to the rocks below. I heard it shatter.

"But—" He shoved me to the ground. I felt a jagged stone tear a long gash up my arm, and cried out in pain.

"Deal with you later." He continued advancing on Luke, who, I saw, was inches away from a crevice, the bottom of which I couldn't see. I lunged forward, ignoring the searing agony in my arm, and hauled him away from it. He shoved me behind him, in some sort of effort to protect me. Though he was just as helpless as I was in this situation.

The starlight glittered off of the blade of the gaderffii. R2D2 seemed to have disappeared. So this was how I was going to die. Slain by a Tusken Raider, on Tatooine, after seventeen years of evading Imperial forces. The irony.

Unless...he was just going to knock Luke and I out. Take us back to his village, and kill us there, or sell us in the next settlement as slaves. If he was going to incapacitate us, we had a chance. But it depended on me performing a very delicate maneuver.

"Luke," I said in a low voice, "how much do you weigh?"

_"What?"_

The flat of the gaderffii swung towards us, as if in slow motion.

"Never mind. Looks like we're out of time."

With that, I back-flipped off of the cliff, trusting my fragile body to the night air and the training that I hadn't reviewed for nearly two decades.


	10. Chapter 10

**...I am not proud of this chapter. **

—**Captain Phantom**

-*!*-

_ I wonder just how much trouble I'm going to get in for this. _

The thought pounded in my head as I dashed through the gleaming white halls of the cloning facility, following the trail of water that Obi-Wan had left. My own robe was soaked, and I was sorely tempted to abandon it, but I had enough problems without throwing away a gift from a Jedi Master.

After all, I had already worried said master by trying to kill another Padawan, irritated him by failing to remain beside him during the tour yesterday, and now I was disobeying a direct order, possibly putting both myself and him in danger. What had I been _thinking? _I was ten years old, woefully undertrained. Yes, I was stronger in the Force than many others my age, and yes, I knew my way around a lightsaber, but that didn't mean that I was ready to take on enemies already. Fighting Hesid in the Temple was one thing. Battling Jango Fett on a rain-slick platform above the raging waves was another entirely.

I felt someone coming; I was currently woven into the force at a level that would have made Aayla proud, too terrified of discovery to worry about the energy drain that it would eventually cause. I ducked into a narrow side hallway, crouching down, hoping that my water trail wouldn't be noticed.

It was one of the clones, a mature one, wearing white armor and carrying a helmet under one arm. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, but to my utter horror—he slipped in one of the puddles that I had created.

He didn't fall, but almost. Steadying himself against the wall, he looked down at the water, his expression never changing. His gaze quickly followed the trail right up to my hiding place. And then his eyes were on me.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What are you doing here?"

I swallowed hard, amazed at how quickly saliva could leave one's mouth. Raising one trembling hand, I met his dark eyes and prayed that I could do this. I had never attempted it before, only seen it done.

"I—I'm supposed to be here," I said, waving my hand, trying desperately to reach out and touch his mind. Try and manipulate him so that he'd leave me alone. "You're not gonna—going to tell anyone about me."

For a second, I was sure that it hadn't worked. But then the clone's eyes became unfocused. He stood up.

"You're supposed to—be here," he said in a halting voice. "I'm not going to—tell—anyone about...you."

He turned around so fast that he almost fell over, and walked jerkily down the hallway. I watched him worriedly, cringing as he almost walked straight into a wall but corrected himself at the last second. Just what in the name of the Force had I done to him? The mind tricks weren't supposed to do damage...

I'd have to worry about that later. At the moment, I had a Jedi to find.

Obi-Wan's trail was drying rapidly, but he had left another for me to follow—one in the force. I could sense his passage, though I often lost the thread and had to go back to it. My grip on my powers was weakening as I grew more and more tired. The exertion that calling upon the Force so much required was affecting me physically as well as mentally; when I was only a quick run from the Fetts' apartment, I had to lean against the wall and catch my breath. Fearing that I would collapse, I sank into a sitting position and put my head between my knees. I reluctantly let go of the Force, being too young to maintain an unconscious connection with it at all times. Because of this, I didn't notice Jaun We and Lama Su's approach until they were almost upon me.

I had barely enough time to stand up on shaky legs and lunge for a nearby door. It appeared to be some sort of janitorial closet; the two Kaminoans rounded the corner as I was closing the door, so I let it be and retreated into the shadows. Their musical voices reached me as I barely breathed.

"...that something very strange is going on here," the Prime Minister was saying. "One of the clones reported seeing a human child in a long brown robe running through the halls, and another found water all over the floor in several of the hallways."

"The Padawan is still here?" Jaun We sounded faintly surprised, and, much to my indignation, exasperated. I had thought that she liked me.

"Perhaps. But I find it hard to believe that her master would have left without her."

I resisted the urge to call out and correct them; Obi-Wan wasn't my master, Aayla was. How many times had that been made clear already?

"Why would the Jedi have remained?" She sounded truly puzzled.

"I have no idea. But they may be hostile. A clone was found in the east wing with impaired motor functions and a seeming inability to formulate a straight answer as to what happened to him. I fear that he may have to be destroyed."

I sank my teeth so hard into my knuckle that I tasted blood. No. How could I have hurt someone that badly?

"The Republic won't be happy," Jaun We pointed out.

"At this point, I am more concerned with the explanation for why two rogue Jedi are running around our facility damaging clones than the Republic's happiness."

Their voices faded. I waited to come out of the closet, and when I did, I wondered if maybe I should just stay there. Or go back to the ship. Or fling myself into the ocean. I had destroyed a man's mind without even meaning to. It hadn't even really sunk in yet, but I was still horrified. Admittedly, more by what the consequences would be than the act itself.

"What," I whispered to myself, "is _wrong _with me?"

Normally, in these sorts of situations (which were more common than I knew at the time), a Padawan would go straight to her master. That was impossible for me to do, for obvious reasons...and there was only one other available Jedi at the moment. I continued with my original plan of finding Obi-Wan, dashing into the Fetts' apartment, opening my mouth to cry out to him. I didn't care about the bounty hunter any more; I simply wanted to be comforted, have things explained to me, be told that I wasn't a monster—

_"Blast!" _ I stopped dead. I had never heard Obi-Wan swear before. Now, he was standing in front of a computer screen, his face a mask of tight fury. The small apartment looked as if the storm outside had forced its way in—what little there was had been strewn all over the place.

"Master..." I began, and the Jedi's gaze flicked over to me. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply.

"Why...couldn't you just..." he began. "Never mind. Curiosity and disobedience are the way of the child. Anakin was no different...Nakomi. There's no time to—never mind, just come with me, and try to stay out of the way."

I did as I was told, feeling too sheepish to tell him about the horrible incident with the clone. We dashed rapidly through the halls, ignoring the shouts of a Kaminoan as we ran right past him. I doubt he knew what we were; Kamino is not a spot that our kind frequent, and besides, we were going too fast for him to get a good look at us.

Finally, Obi-Wan ran through one last door, back out into the storm. A raindrop hit me in the face, and I balked, not wanting to go out. It was cold, it was wet...and the man whom I considered my temporary master was out there. I braced myself and followed him.

The first thing I heard was simply the pounding of rain on my hood and the platform around me. And then a voice that was unmistakably Boba Fett's: "Dad!"

Gunfire. The flash of a light saber. I pulled my own out of my belt, ignited it, and ran forward, wanting to help. But then I was shoved back, so hard that I almost fell over. My saber cut a furrow in the alloy of the platform as I failed to turn it off in time.

_"Nakomi!" _Obi-Wan yelled as he spun and leapt rapidly, just barely warding off Jango Fett's fire. I stared at the bounty hunter, hovering a safe distance above his enemy. "Get _back, _you foolish child! Get _back!_"

I did as I was told, sprinting for the doorway. But I didn't go inside. Instead, I turned. Despite the fact that I had already used the Force to the point of exhaustion earlier in the day, I tapped into it again. Raising my right arm, I focused on Jango Fett. Imagined pulling him out of the sky...

He began to sink, and kicked the rockets on his back into higher gear. The effort almost brought me to my knees, but I kept pulling. I brought both of my hands up, and wondered if the moisture on my body was sweat or rain. I wondered if it even really mattered. I gritted my teeth, ignored the pain that had suddenly blossomed in my skull, and desperately reached out to the energy that was my birthright. Jango went lower...lower...

Something solid slammed into me, carrying me to the ground so hard that the platform reverberated beneath us. Because of the rain, we skidded all the way to the edge. My concentration broken, Jango shot back up, and I screamed as my headache flourished. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cradle my skull, or maybe just beat it against a wall until it split open and the pressure was relieved. I felt like I was going to throw up. But instead, I writhed underneath my captor, trying desperately to get him off of me. Through my blurred vision, I saw the determined face of Boba Fett.

"What are you doing?" I gasped, trying unsuccessfully to free my pinned arms. "You're going to get killed—"

"What are _you _doing?" he challenged. "Bringing my dad down so that that Jedi can kill him? You're a monster!"

"You're the monster," I spat, wishing that my head didn't feel like a full-grown bantha had been transported into it. I might have been able to shove him off of me, despite the fact that he was so much bigger. _"Clone." _

His face registered his shock. I barely had a moment to marvel at this. Jango...hadn't told him? How had he kept it from him? Fed him lies about his mother? Kept him away from the other boy copies? Surely he had suspected, on some level. This couldn't be the first time that the revelation that he might not be the bounty hunter's biological son had entered his mind.

Could it?

Boba's expression hardened again. With his knees on the creases of my elbows so that I couldn't get up, he pulled a laser gun off of a sling on his back and pointed it straight at my face. I couldn't tell if his face was wet from tears or rain.

"Shut up," he said in a wavering voice. "Just—shut up, I'm gonna kill you—"

Panic broke over me in an acidic wave, and I began to thrash around as much as the pain in my head would allow. Head jerking from side-to-side, torso bucking, legs waving in the air.

"No, no, Boba, don't do this, don't kill me, you can't kill me, Boba, no, no, _don't shoot—_"

_"Shut up!" _ He hit me with the gun, hard enough that I felt the skin on my jawbone split open. Blood, sweat, tears and rain ran down my face, and I was sure that several of my teeth had come loose. The blow had certainly silenced me. "I'm going to kill you. You're going to be quiet, alright? You're my first one, but—but my dad said that I have to start someplace—"

"Don't," I sobbed in a quiet voice, trying very hard not to make my face and head hurt more than they already did. "Don't do this. There's no darkness in you yet, Boba—confusion, but no darkness."

"You—what? What are you talking about?"

The truth was that I had just lied. The Force had left me when he tackled me, and I hadn't been paying any attention to his composition when I met him yesterday.

"I said—"

But he was already pushing the barrel of the gun up under my chin, and icy clarity washed over me. I was going to die if I continued begging. Boba wouldn't allow that to faze him. But maybe, if I made him angry...

I laughed out loud, startling him.

"What—"

"Go ahead," I told him. "Fulfill your purpose. After all, that's what the others were made for, wasn't it? To kill? You're no different!"

"I am too!"

"No. No, you aren't. In fact, I think that you just got mixed up with the actual unaltered clone that Jango requisitioned. I wonder if he knows. No, he must, the way he looks at you—"

He hit me again, much harder this time. I felt my jaw dislocate, but I didn't care. Boba was off-balance, and this was what I had been waiting for. I was able to surge up, knock the gun out of his hands, and shove him backwards. I pulled my lightsaber out of my belt and stalked towards him, igniting it.

"Now, Boba," I said, my speech slurred as he started to back away. I could only imagine what sort of nightmare I must look like, with blood all over my face and my jaw so crooked. "It's terrible manners to threaten to kill someone without allowing them to return the favor—"

Suddenly, his fear-filled gaze was drawn by something else. I glanced over to see that Obi-Wan had managed to grab onto Jango, who was flying up into the air...kicking him loose...watching him fall.

_"NO!" _I screamed as the Jedi plunged out of sight. I lunged towards him, dropping my lightsaber, bringing both hands up. The Force wasn't responding to me. No! No, I could catch him! I could bring him back up! He wasn't gone, he wasn't drowned, he was alive, I just had to catch him—

"Go join your Master, Nakomi," Boba snarled from behind me, and before I could turn around, the butt of a gun slammed into my head.

Then darkness, as I fell.

-*!*-

** As you may be able to tell, I find it much more difficult to write the flashback chapters, though I feel that this one ended better than it started. A quick note to the few people who actually pay attention to me (a nod here to CC-645, Kishadow, and CassiusTroy): If you actually read this story, expect new chapters every other day, except on the weekend—expect one a day then, perhaps two. As always, I implore you to review. Tell me what you think.**


	11. Chapter 11

My wrist broke when I landed on the rocks below. I felt both of the fragile bones snap, but I bit tongue instead of crying out. If I remained silent, maybe they would think that I was dead. Maybe I could save Luke.

I could have used the Force to keep myself from falling so hard, riddling my thin frame with bruises and cuts. But I was reluctant to reach out to it, especially if Obi-Wan was nearby and sensed me. Thankfully, my wrist was the worst injury I suffered. Holding it close to my body as I lay sprawled in the starlight, I didn't move, warily thinking my way around myself. Yes, there was a lot of pain, but none of the pressurized aching that I had come to associate with organ damage. I was still conscious. And judging by the fact that there was only superficial stinging in my legs, I could still walk.

But I stayed where I was, eyes glassy and staring, chest barely rising and falling just in case the Sandperson checked to see if I was dead. Luke cried out above me, and there was a muffled thud, but I didn't move, as much as I wanted to call out to him. If he was dead, there was nothing I could do for him but make it back to the homestead and tell his family.

Sure enough, a head swaddled in the turban of the desert peoples poked over the edge of the cliff. I couldn't make out eyes at this distance, but after a couple moments, I heard a satisfied sound. The head disappeared. Immediately, I sprang into action, hauling myself shakily to my feet, cradling my wrist close to my body, stumbling over the rocks. I was choking back tears of shock and panic, trying to ignore the fact that my flimsy clothes were torn to the point of indecency and stained with enough blood to be worrisome. Despite my earlier assessment, I had begun to hurt deep inside. Maybe I actually _had _ruptured something, and was hours away from bleeding out into my own chest cavity. But there wasn't much I could do about that now. Hide, rest, rescue Luke at a later date. If they hadn't killed him...

I forced that thought from my head.

Suddenly, faint beeping reached me from somewhere ahead. I raised my head, trying to see through eyes that were beginning to swell shut. Lights. Blinking in a vaguely familiar pattern.

_R2. _

I had been aiming for a shallow depression in the cliff to tuck myself into, but I forced my tired legs onward, to where the small droid was waiting in front of a much larger, deeper crack. I smiled at him in gratitude, wondering if he knew what the gesture meant.

"Thank you," I rasped. I wished for water, but knew that I wasn't going to get it.

R2 beeped in an "it was nothing, really" sort of way and wheeled himself into the alcove. I followed, tucking my legs up to my chest. When I accidentally jostled my wrist, I hissed in pain.

Supported by both the wall and the droid, I began to force my heartrate to slow down. At the moment, it was so rapid that I could actually feel blood shooting through the vessels in my neck and legs. I knew that it was foolish to fear that the Sandpeople would be able to hear it. But I worried nonetheless.

As the adrenalin levels in my system slowly dropped and my breathing slowed, I became grateful for the heat emanating from R2D2. It combated the chill of the desert night nicely...

I don't remember falling asleep. But I remember the nightmares that I had.

-*!*-

_"Don't hurt him. Please, please don't hurt him."_

_ "I have orders." A shadowy figure wielding a lightsaber that flickers between blue and green is standing over a boy's prone body. A small child, a girl no older than twelve, kneels several feet away from them. Her expression is terrified, and marred by a shallow burn across her face. _

_ "From who?" she shouts, tears of fear and anger in her purple eyes. "Who told you to do this?"_

_ "My master." The figure seems to take delight in her shock. He is surrounded by other limp children, but unlike the boy, none of them are breathing. "We've always been taught to obey, haven't we?"_

_ "You're lying," she whispers, slowly getting to her feet, backing away from him. "You're lying, he would _never—_"_

_ "Never what?" The figure's lightsaber twitches towards the boy as the girl lunges for a weapon of her own. "Never command me to kill children? Why, because it's not in the _Code_?"_

_ His voice is scornful. "You have much to learn about the Order, Nakomi. No, don't reach for that again; I'll kill him."_

_ "Why haven't you done it yet?" the girl—Nakomi—sobs. "Why couldn't you just _kill _me?"_

_ The figure throws back his head and laughs, but his face still isn't revealed. "You know why."_

_ "No, I—I don't—_NO!_"_

_ Everything slows as the point of the lightsaber penetrates the boy's vulnerable torso, and then slowly fades away. Nakomi's half-mad shrieks hang in the air even as light spills into the nightmare._

-*!*-

_Don't you dare scream!_

I wasn't sure where the thought came from, but when I woke up sweating and shaking, my good hand was clapped over my mouth and my tongue was clenched between my teeth when I came to. Somehow, the animal howls of loss, fear and pain that had been building inside me were quelled. I leaned back against the wall of the tiny cave that I was in, half-laughing, half-crying as memory flooded back, trying hard not to be too loud about either.

Puzzled beeps came from something right next to me. I glanced over at the little R2 unit that had spent the night in the alcove with me.

"Good morning," I whispered. Or tried to. My throat was too dry even for that. "Think Luke's still alive?"

More beeping, sounding concerned but optimistic. I nodded, deciding not to talk again.

I slowly stood, wincing at how much I hurt. Whatever my flip off the cliff had injured last night, spending so long in a cramped position with no water certainly hadn't improved my condition. Bent over and shuffling like an old woman, I crept out of the cave.

Only to dive back into it, practically knocking over R2. He beeped indignantly. I sank my teeth savagely into my good hand to keep from screaming as the bones in my wrist grated against each other, sending bolts of pain up my arm that skewed my vision and turned my stomach. Kneeling on the sandy ground, I stopped biting my hand and used it to cradle my wrist as I alternately spit blood and retched.

There were Sandpeople out there, carrying Luke back to the Landspeeder. I hadn't been able to tell if he was dead or unconscious, though I hadn't seen any blood. There had been so many raiders...what the hell was I going to _do_? I was a girl, small and injured, with no weapon besides the small knife in my belt and no allies besides a tiny droid meant for ship maintenance. They were going to kill Luke, tear apart the Landspeeder, and then I was going to die from dehydration or septicemia. Whichever came first in the desert heat.

As if confirming my bleak theory, excited jabbering and the sounds of tearing metal came from outside as the raiders took advantage of the vehicle that had so faithfully carried us out here. They were scavengers. And they knew better than to just leave a machine that was in a shape that good.

I gazed into R2's many eyes, hoping that I didn't look quite as haggard as I felt and then deciding that I didn't care.

"I always knew that this planet would be my grave," I mouthed, my vocal cords being too desiccated to manage even a hiss. "I just thought that I'd die by lightsaber, not exposure."

And then another sound reached me.

A strange howling that sent chills up my spine. Not animal, not human—it barely even sounded organic. But then again, it didn't sound like a machine either. For a moment, tales of ghosts that I had overheard in Anchorhead popped into my mind. Ragged, wind-torn wraiths gliding over the dunes, sucking the life out of anyone unlucky enough to cross their path...but those only appeared at night, didn't they?

Whatever it was, I withdrew further into the hole into the rock, maneuvering my knife out of my belt. Somehow, R2 managed to get in front of me, but I didn't object. I peered over the dome of his head as the Sandpeople shrieked at each other and fled in terror, leaving behind everything they had salvaged from the Landspeeder.

As soon as they were gone, a figure dressed in loose brown robes came onto the scene. His face was covered, so I couldn't tell who he was, but I had a pretty good idea. My breathing sped up as I took everything special about me, my talents, my mind tricks, my rusty connection to the Force...and hid it away. So deep inside myself that the man out there wouldn't be able to sense it, and I wasn't sure if even I would ever be able to retrieve it. It surprised me how much I had held onto. The intuition, the reflexes...they were gone now, under lock and key. Nothing to indicate to "Ben" that I was more than a child of wind and sand. If he managed to find me which, considering my current hiding place, I doubted.

R2, however, had other ideas. He beeped enthusiastically and rapidly wheeled out of his hiding place, despite my efforts to hold him back. My ragged fingernails slipped out of the small crevice on the droid's body that I had managed to wedge them into as he slipped away. My muffled curses laid on him and his makers didn't seem to deter him at all.

"Hello there!" the cloaked figure called out as soon as the droid was visible. I stiffened. Yes, made rough and informal by age and isolation, but...it belonged to him. No doubt. "Come here, my little friend. Don't be afraid."

I crawled a little closer to the mouth of the cave, and watched the hermit bend over Luke. R2 beeped fretfully as he placed a hand on his head.

"Don't worry, he'll be alright."

Even as he spoke, the boy began to stir. I couldn't see his eyes flutter open, but I could imagine. I readied myself.

"What happened?" he murmured.

"Rest easy, son, you've—"

"Stay away from him." I stood up and walked out of the cave, clutching the knife because I figured that it was better than nothing. Even though it made me want to scream, I allowed my bad wrist to dangle down beside me instead of holding it so that it wouldn't be apparent that it was injured. I hoped that I looked more threatening than I felt—short, painfully skinny, with torn clothes, a rat's-nest of hair, and bags of exhaustion and dehydration under my eyes. You could probably kill me by pushing me over, but that wasn't really the message that I wanted to get across.

The old man slowly stood up. I could see his face now, though I avoided his eyes. The years had not been kind; weather, hardship and sorrow had stripped him of the aging handsomeness that I had known the last time I saw him. But then again, I was sure that I was no different. He was barely recognizable, but I must have been completely impossible to identify, based on Ben's reaction.

"Who—" he began.

"Aika Dunerunner," I said quickly, before Luke could give my real name. "Just back away from him, and I won't hurt you."

"You're Dima's child?" His voice registered his surprise. "I had no idea she had a daughter as young as you."

"Back away from him." I motioned with the knife. Ben tried to catch my eye, but I evaded his gaze. I'm not sure what he thought he'd find there. Madness? Fear? Whatever, he slowly moved away from Luke, R2 with him. The droid beeped disapprovingly at me.

"What's wrong with you?" Luke snapped at me as I walked over to him, keeping my knife pointed at Ben. He grabbed my wrist in order to pull himself to his feet, and didn't seem to notice the muffled whimper that I was unable to hold back. Or the obviously-broken bones that his hand was wrapped around. "It's just Ben Kenobi, N—Aika."

The look that he gave me as he said my fake name made it clear that we were going to discuss it later.

"No, it's quite alright," Ben assured him. "Aika, I understand you're frightened, having been attacked by Sandpeople, but I assure you that you have nothing to fear from me."

I said nothing, but I did lower the knife slightly. More because my arm was growing tired than from trust.

"The Jundland wastes are not to be traveled lightly, as I'm sure you know," the old man continued. "What brings you two young ones out here?"

Luke reached out and pushed my knife-wielding hand down. I was too weak to fight back against him. Ben, taking this as a sign that he was wanted, came forward. I backed away until my calves hit the Landspeeder.

"That little droid," Luke said, nodding to R2. "I think he's searching for his former master...I've never seen such devotion in a droid before...there seems to be no stopping him. He claims to be the property of an Obi-Wan Kenobi. Is he a relative of yours? Do you know who he's talking about?"

Ben started. "Obi-Wan Kenobi...Obi-Wan? Now _that's _a name I haven't heard in a long time...a _long _time."

_Exactly what I thought, "Ben." I thought you were dead. Burned with the rest of the Jedi, or perhaps killed by your own apprentice. But I can't be allowed to have even the slightest bit of peace, can I? I can't be allowed to rest? Why won't anyone just let me forget?_

"I think my uncle knew him," Luke was continuing. "He said he was dead."

_Don't I wish._

"Oh, he's not dead," Ben replied wearily. "Not...not yet."

"You know him!" he said excitedly.

"Well, of course. Of course I know him. He's—"

"You," I said in a low voice. "Yes, we know. Luke, please, let's just go. I don't feel well."

"Huh? What's wrong, Na—Aika?" He glanced at me in concern.

"Come, we had better get you indoors," Ben said, reaching for me. "You don't look very—"

I leapt back, wishing that I didn't stumble when I landed. "Don't touch me!"

"Aika—"

I turned and ran, heading straight out into the dune sea. Wishing that my memories could be snapped in half as easily as my bones.


	12. Chapter 12

**First of all, a few thanks are in order, because reviews are finally being posted. Thank you. CC-645, your suggestions were quite helpful, and yes, the inconsistencies that you mentioned were deliberate, but they stemmed more from laziness on my part than any actual plot-related reason. I've been doing quite a bit more research for these last couple chapters, and I hope it shows. But I'm still not totally sure about the timeline...**

-*Nineteen Years Ago*-

_ Nakomi..._

_ What?_

_ Be still, child. Can you hear me alright?_

_ Ow! Ow, that hurts!_

_ I know, I know. I'm sorry. Do you know where you are?_

_ Who are you?_

_ Nakomi, do you know where you are?_

_ ...the Temple...?_

_ No. I knew I shouldn't have brought you here. This is going to hurt, be strong._

_ OW! Let go of me! Where am I? Who—_

-*!*-

"—are you?" I yelled, sitting bolt upright and opening my eyes. Immediately, I cringed at the pain in my head and face. "What happened? Why do I..."

I trailed off. Icy rain was pounding down on me, and I was sitting on a platform vibrating with the force of the angry ocean below. My clothing was soaked. With wind cutting all the way to my vulnerable skin, I rapidly began to shiver. Obi-Wan was crouching next to me, looking about ten years older than he had when I saw him last and a great deal wetter. He was tentatively holding my jaw in place, but slowly let go of it. It stayed, but ached.

"Please tell me you remember who I am, young Padawan," he said wearily. _"Please."_

"Master Obi-Wan!" I scrambled to my feet and almost fell over as the pain in my head made my vision swirl sickeningly. He steadied me.

"Good, good. I was afraid that that blow had hurt you very seriously. When I saw you lying here on the platform..." He shook his head.

"Someone hit me?"

"You don't remember who?"

"No."

"I suppose it doesn't matter. Come." Obi-Wan stood and placed a hand on my back, guiding me towards the door. It slid open, revealing Jaun-We and Lama-Su.

"Master Obi-Wan," the Prime Minister said stiffly. "I was not aware that you remained on our humble planet."

"I believed that Jango Fett was a threat, and it appears that I was right, doesn't it? If you will excuse me, I'm going to use the medical systems on my ship to make sure that my Padawan doesn't have permanent brain damage." Maneuvering me in front of him, the Jedi pushed through the two Kaminoans without even the slightest bow. I was shocked at how angry he seemed at them. They hadn't done anything.

"Master Obi-Wan, we have a fully-equipped medical bay here—" Jaun We began, but he ignored her.

"Why are you so angry with them?" I asked. He glanced down at me as we walked rapidly through the halls, almost but not quite running.

"I'm not, I simply want to catch the bounty hunter. I'd leave you here if I trusted these creatures not to experiment on you. Please, accept my apologies, I knew how dangerous this was going to be and yet I dragged a Padawan into it anyway."

I stared straight ahead. "Master, don't apologize. This is what I'm supposed to be doing, isn't it? Rather than staying inside the Temple fighting with other children."

He didn't answer.

Outside, Obi-Wan stopped dead when he saw the Starfighter, a strangled sound worming its way out of his throat. I winced and shuffled out of hitting distance. Had I...really left the canopy down...? So that water could fill the cockpit and spill over the sides?

"It's alright," the Jedi finally said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Come. It won't take much to fix."

I stood under the wing, out of the rain, while he worked hard to fix the problem that I had created. R4 kept up a steady stream of sympathetic beeps above me, but I ignored them. When the cockpit was finally dry, Obi-Wan lifted me into it and then climbed in himself, wringing out both of our robes before closing the canopy. This time, he didn't make me sit behind the seat, though I felt that I deserved to. Instead, I crouched beside him.

"We're going after them?" I asked as the small ship lifted off. Obi-Wan nodded.

"Yes. We are."

"You're going to try to destroy them?"

"I see no other way."

"But, Master...Boba's just a child."

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "I'm aware of that."

I realized that he must have already thought this over, come to the unwelcome decision that there was no way to eliminate Jango and the significant threat that he posed to the Republic without killing his "son," as well. I could only imagine him turning the problem over and over in his head as he waited for me to come to on the platform, searching for another solution and failing to find one. We were Jedi. We were supposed to preserve life, not end it, especially not for one so young. And this fact must be hurting him even more than me.

Was this what it was to be a Master? Doing the right thing even when every part of your being told you that it was wrong? A sudden and unprecedented desire to remain young forever rocked me as we broke through the atmosphere.

"Nakomi, brace yourself," Obi-Wan said tensely. I did as I was told, staring at the rapidly-shrinking bright dot that I somehow knew was Jango Fett's ship. Were they aware of our pursuit of them? Why hadn't they—

Before I could even finish the thought, they vanished into hyperspace.

"_Blast _it!"

"Can we still follow them?"

Obi-Wan didn't answer, just accelerated. I closed my eyes and tried to combat the hideous queasy feeling that was slowly creeping up through my body. I'd never felt sick like this before; it seemed to be stemming from the agony in my head. There was something very wrong. A concussion? Definitely. Maybe even a cracked skull. Whatever it was, hyperspace was not helping it.

The sensation abated slightly as we reentered normal space, right in the middle of an asteroid field. I winced as one tumbled past us. Its absence in the formation afforded me a clear view of a nearby red planet.

"Geonosis?" Obi-Wan muttered to himself. "Why did they come here...?"

"Master..."

"Yes?"

"I think they saw us."

Jango's fighter, which had been drifting leisurely through the asteroids, suddenly turned sharply and cut a path through a denser section of the field. An obvious evasion maneuver. With his knuckles white on the controls, the Jedi gave chase.

During the battle, the only thing I could do was hang on and watch. As rapid fire from the ship that we were pursuing slammed into our hull, despite Obi-Wan's best efforts, my helplessness manifested itself as a hard ball in the core of my being. It seemed to grow as time went on. I could barely stand this—I couldn't do anything but try and follow Jango's ship with my eyes in case Obi-Wan lost sight of him. The inactivity made my blood into acid in my veins and lined every breath with razors. If only we were on the ground, I could use my lightsaber, actually be of use...

Jango was leading us deeper and deeper into the asteroid field, making it so that we had to dodge the huge rocks as well as his fire. More than once, Obi-Wan was forced to choose between allowing the bounty hunter's missiles to hit us and smashing into an asteroid. I flinched despite myself as a rock larger than the Starfighter actually grazed the canopy, leaving a long white streak. Far ahead, I could see a small figure in Jango's cockpit doing the same as their wing clipped an asteroid. That was when it hit me.

Obi-Wan wasn't returning fire.

"Why aren't you shooting at them?" I demanded. "He's trying to _kill _us, we have guns—"

He said nothing, concentrating instead on flying. Despite my indignation, I sensed that it might be a good idea to keep my mouth shut until we were out of the immediate danger posed by the gigantic rocks all around us. While we kept clipping them despite Obi-Wan's intense concentration, Jango evaded them with ease. It almost looked as if he had done this before. As if he had practiced flying through this asteroid field multiple times before. In preparation for today? Or simply out of boredom? Not that it mattered. He was so much better than Obi-Wan, and not even the reflexes of a Jedi were better than experience. I felt a momentary stab of envy towards Boba. It looked like he had put his faith in the right party after all.

Suddenly, something moved across our path. An asteroid. But it was so much larger than the others around it; almost big enough to be considered a moon or a dwarf planet. And it was going a lot faster, too. There was no way we could avoid it. The kind of fear that you feel only when you know for sure that you're about to die bloomed in me, and I was suddenly concerned with how light-headed I felt. As if that mattered.

There were muffled thumping sounds from outside. Obi-Wan had finally fired a couple of torpedoes—not that they would do much good now. Jango Fett was on the other side of the rock that would be our grave, couldn't he see that?

It wasn't until the resulting explosions carved out a hollow in the asteroid, giving us room to decelerate, that I realized what the purpose of the maneuver had been. Obi-Wan landed the Starfighter in the new crater, so gently that I didn't feel anything on contact. I knew exactly how this would look to the Fetts. Our ship crashing into the asteroid, obviously killing everything on board. It was strange for me to know that someone thought I was dead. Jango and Boba would believe that whatever was left of me was drifting through space, while actually, my heart still beat in my chest, my lungs still expanded and contracted. It made me uneasy.

"Are you alright?" Obi-Wan asked, glancing over at me. I just nodded. My head still hurt, but I didn't feel as if I was in danger of passing out again any time soon. "Good. I'll need your help when we reach the planet."

With that, he pulled away from the asteroid and turned towards Geonosis, a planet the color of blood. Something was tugging at my mind, giving me a feeling of foreboding about the planet, but I wasn't sure if it was the Force or just the last effects of the severe blow to the head that I had received.

So I ignored it.


	13. Chapter 13

**This chapter's longer than most, unfortunately. A quick question: Do you think that I should stop doing the flashbacks and just focus on the storyline set in the present? Or keep them? As always, please, **_**please **_**review. It means the world to me.**

-*!*-

Unfortunately, I didn't get very far. Dehydration, pain, and exhaustion made my legs weak; I had to stop after only running about twenty feet, to catch my breath and stabilize my wrist. A strong hand clamped down on my shoulder before I could even straighten up. Heavily calloused from working on vaporators, and warm despite the night that its owner had just spent knocked out.

"Luke," I said without turning around, "let go of me."

He refused. "You won't make a mile in your condition. Why are you acting so strange?"

"I don't trust him."

"But _why_? I understand he's a little odd, but that's no reason to—"

"_You _don't understand anything," I snapped, finally looking at him. He was sunburned. How was that even possible? He'd lived in the desert his entire life, he should have been tan enough to resist the suns' rays by now...

"Well, then, explain it to me." Luke took his hand off of my shoulder, and I glanced out over the dune sea. Estimated how far I could get. No water, temperatures steadily rising, and a broken wrist...maybe a couple feet. If I was lucky.

"I don't—" I began, but then something heavy and covered in leather was thrust into my good hand. I could feel the chill of the contents even through the leather, and my dust-coated internal organs sent up a cry of longing that I couldn't ignore. I'd twisted the cap off with my teeth and started gulping the cold water inside before I even realized I was doing it.

"Hey, slow down, you're gonna make yourself sick." Luke gently pushed the canteen down, and I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand. How long had it been since I'd had cold water? Everything I'd drunk since coming to Dima's home had been room temperature, and tasted faintly of the desert sand. I had gotten used to it a long time ago. But it was still a treat to drink water that was cooler than my own body.

"Where'd you get this?" I asked, raising the canteen to my mouth again. This time, I drank a lot slower, in small, measured sips.

"Ben—er, I mean Obi-Wan."

I spit out my mouthful and gagged. It tasted fine, but I knew that there poisons that were undetectable. Luke snatched the canteen out of my hand, looking annoyed.

"What's wrong with you?" he snapped, taking a drink as if to defy me. "You're not in any danger! You act like somebody's trying to kill you!"

"Someone _is _trying to kill me!" I saw no harm in telling him this. As long as I didn't elaborate.

_"Who?"_

"You don't need to know that." I met his eyes, noticed that they were dark blue. Pretended I didn't care. "Just—you're too trusting. It's almost scary. You don't have any idea what things beyond this planet are like."

"And you don't trust anybody." His expression was unreadable, and I crushed the sudden urge I had to probe his mind. That'd be using the Force, and there was no way that Obi-Wan wouldn't sense it. "But I guess that's because you know what 'things beyond this planet are like,' huh?"

"Luke, where were you born?"

"Polis Massa."

I hadn't expected that. Polis Massa? It was used as a safe haven by Jedi in the last days of the Republic. If Luke had been born there, did that mean that his mother had been one of my ki—one of them? She would have had to have been excommunicated from the Order by the time she gave birth, all Jedi took a vow of celibacy.

"What's wrong? I'm not as much of a hick as you thought I was?" Luke raised an eyebrow. "Where were _you _born, Nakomi? Or should I call you Aika?"

Should I tell him the truth? That I didn't know where I had been born because Padawans weren't allowed to know their parents or their planets of origin? I had been taken as a baby, too young to remember anything other than the Temple, so my family must have lived either on Coruscant itself or a nearby planet. Or simply someplace that Jedi frequented.

"Here," I lied. "I was born here."

"Then how..."

"It's a very long story." I managed to conjure a weary smile. "I'll tell you sometime, but now, can you please just take me back to Di—my mother?" The words were foreign in my mouth.

"Yeah. Just as soon as I talk to Ben about R2." Luke put an arm around my shoulders before I could bolt, holding me in place but not forcing me back to where Obi-Wan was waiting for us. Yet. "It will be okay. I'll protect you."

I looked at him, saw the sincerity in his face. He honestly believed that he would be able to keep me safe. But unfortunately, faith didn't mean that the promise would be kept.

"I..." I stopped, took a deep breath. "Alright. You want to know more about your father. I understand."

He opened his mouth, as if to protest, but I cut him off. "Though really, I'll be the one protecting _you. _I am older, after all."

Luke laughed as we started to walk back towards the Landspeeder. "That may be true, but I'm bigger."

"Only physically." Before he had a chance to let that sink in, I added, "Just remember to call me Aika."

"Why don't you want him to know your real name?"

"Old superstition." Something occurred to me. "Think of me as Aika, too."

"How could that possibly—"

"Just do it!"

Obi-Wan nodded to us as we returned. He looked worried, and I wondered what possible reason he would have to care about me. But then again, he thought that I was just an ordinary hermit.

"Aika, I'm sorry if I frightened you," he apologized. _Slipping into formal speech again so quickly? _"Believe me, I understand what living alone does to somebody."

"I live with Dima," I said stiffly. He didn't seem to hear me. "Luke, get your arm off of me, I can walk."

Luke did as he was told. I knelt, selected my helmet from among the things that the Sandpeople had torn out of the Landspeeder and tucked it under one arm.

"I think we better get indoors," Obi-Wan continued. "The Sandpeople are easily startled, but they will soon be back. And in greater numbers."

Suddenly, R2 beeped. It was a pitiful, almost heartbroken sound, in a tone that I never expected to hear coming from a machine. Luke's eyes widened.

"3P0!" he exclaimed. "I almost forgot all about him...N—Aika, did you see where he fell?"

"On the other side of the ridge that we were on," I replied. "It didn't sound good."

"We have to go get him." Grabbing my upper arm, he towed me along as he hurried over to where I had claimed that C3P0 was. Obi-Wan followed us.

We found the golden robot in a sand pit at the foot of the cliff, twisted and dead-eyed. His circuitry was spilling out in several places and the plates covering his body were dented, but I couldn't help feeling a stab of envy. What I wouldn't have given to have fallen here instead of on the rocks on the other side...

"Is he broken?" I asked as Luke climbed down into the pit and began to shake the droid, flipping a switch when he didn't revive.

"Not too baldly," he replied as 3P0's eyes lit up slowly.

"Where am I?" the robot said in a disoriented manner as he looked around. "Oh, my. I must have taken a bad step."

"Don't worry, you weren't the only one." Luke glanced up at me. "Aika practically jumped off."

"Aika?" The confusion in 3P0's mechanical voice was evident, but Luke didn't give him an opportunity to ask any more questions.

"Can you stand? We've got to get out of here before the Sandpeople return."

"I don't think I can make it," the droid sighed, taking on the air of a resigned martyr. "You go on, Master Luke..." (Here I had to stifle my laughter; the thought of Luke as a Jedi Master was one of the funniest things I had come across in awhile.) "...there's no sense in you risking yourself for me. I'm done for."

R2 beeped angrily, and though it was impossible for humans to understand the language of droids, Luke seemed to agree with whatever he had said. "No, you're not. What kind of talk is that? Aika, come help me."

"I can't." I nodded to my wrist. "This hand's useless."

He looked at me, and I could tell that he was replaying recent events in his head. At the memory of grabbing my injured wrist to get to his feet, he winced. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

Obi-Wan joined Luke in the pit, and R2 and I watched as they hauled C3P0 to his feet. He was even more battered than I had originally thought; one of his arms remained in the sand when he stood up. Suddenly, the old Jedi let go of him, and glanced around suspiciously.

"Come, you two," he said, nodding to Luke and I. "They're on the move."

I saw no choice but to follow him.

-*!*-

"No, my father didn't fight in the wars," Luke was saying, wrapping bandages around my wrist and the two wooden rods stabilizing it. "He was a navigator on a spice freighter. That's not too tight, is it?"

I shook my head. "You're very good at medical care."

He glanced up from my wrist, grinning. "I can set a broken bone or two. Aunt Beru showed me how when I turned ten, said that if I was going to get my arm caught in the vaporator all the time, I could darn well start taking care of it myself."

"Who told you that your father wasn't a warrior?" Obi-Wan asked from where he was sitting at the entrance to his home, watching the desert. Occasionally, he'd steal glances over at us, as if he thought that we wouldn't notice. Whenever he saw me looking at him, he'd simply turn away, not embarrassed at all about being caught. I wondered if he still hadn't noticed anything familiar in my face.

"My uncle." Luke finished my wrist. "You hurt it pretty bad, but it should be okay in a couple weeks or so. Just be sure and get it cast properly in Anchorhead."

"Alright." I took my hand back and rubbed my forearm, knowing that I had just made an empty promise.

"Your uncle?" Obi-Wan watched him as he picked up 3P0's detached arm and began tending to him.

"Yes."

"He lied."

Luke looked over at him, obviously startled by this blunt claim. So was I. I have to admit.

"He...lied?"

"Yes, he didn't hold with your father's ideals. Thought that he should have stayed here and not gotten involved."

Luke was silent for several moments. I watched him carefully, trying to gauge what his reaction to this new information would be. Or maybe I was just looking for pointers on how I should act.

"Did you fight in the Clone Wars, Ben?"

"Yes." The hermit seemed lost in thought. "I did. Right beside your father, in fact."

"I wish I'd known him." Luke turned his attention back to reattaching 3P0's arm. I stopped rubbing my wrist.

"No, you don't," I said quietly, hoping that I wasn't drawing too much attention to myself. "What if he'd been horrible? What if he'd hated you?"

"I don't think—" he began, but I interrupted him.

"And what if he'd been perfect? What if you'd loved him? You have no idea how much harder it is to grieve someone you knew than a perfect stranger." I stared out at the desert sky. The twin suns. Felucia had only one sun, didn't it? Had Aayla been standing under it when she died? Or did Order 66 reach her loyal soldiers at night? I didn't know; I hadn't been able to find out...

_"We've lost another planet, Master Cin. Felucia."_

_ "...I can't believe it. Not another. Aayla was on that one, wasn't she? Does her Padawan know?"_

_ "Master, I believe she's outside the door right now."_

Luke cleared his throat uncomfortably, bringing me out of the Temple and back to the present. He didn't seem to know how to respond to what I had just said, so he didn't. Obi-Wan attempted to dispel the awkward atmosphere that I had created.

"Luke, your father was a good man," he said. "The best star pilot in the galaxy, and a cunning warrior. And...and he was a good friend. Very loyal."

He seemed to have retreated into his memories. I wasn't expecting him to speak again when he took a deep breath and continued.

"He was a credit to the Order."

Luke's head whipped around so fast I winced, wondering just how many muscles he had pulled doing that. "The Order? My father was—"

"Yes, a Jedi Knight." Obi-Wan sounded tired. "Just like me, long ago."

"A...Jedi." Luke looked stunned. "He was a Jedi."

A theory pulsed in my brain, dark and venomous. I shoved it away. No. It was impossible, on so many different levels. But his father's status as a Jedi _did _explain why he had been born on Polis Massa.

"Which reminds me. There's something I should have given to you before now, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow me on some damned-fool idealistic crusade like your father did," Obi-Wan said, standing up and walking over to a chest. He rummaged around in it, then pulled something out, examining it before handing it to Luke. Their hands obscured it, and I craned my neck, curious as to what it was.

"What is it?" Luke asked, examining it.

_My thoughts exactly. _

"Your father's lightsaber," Obi-Wan told him. "This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or as random as a blaster."

His thumb moved, as if pressing a button, and blade of light shot out of whatever he was holding. Green, almost solid, crystalline in appearance and surrounded by a halo of softer light. It flickered blue on the edges. A phenomenon that might have been lost on an untrained eye, but not mine. I gasped aloud.

Not because the display amazed me. But because I _knew _this weapon. Knew its appearance, the feeling that it brought into the air when it was ignited, its buzzing song. I remembered it lighting up the darkness as the power in the Temple failed, bobbing in front of me almost tauntingly on the night that something vital inside of me died. Yes, I knew this saber.

It was mine.


	14. Chapter 14

** Allow me to express my apologies for how late this chapter is; I know that my...*counts*...very few fans must be disappointed in me. School has demanded most of my time for the past week or so and there were some personal matters that I had to attend to. Now, though, I plan on resuming my regular schedule. As always, please review.**

-*Nineteen Years Ago*-

"Do you see those?"

I glanced at where Obi-Wan was pointing, glad for a distraction. My fingers were tight around my lightsaber, obsessively rubbing the grip, itching to ignite it. But there was no enemy for me to fight as we wove through the last of the asteroids. These ones were the most dangerous; small, fast, and very hard to avoid.

A line of huge ships drifted on the horizon, tucked into the fringes of the asteroid belt. I didn't recognize their design; it was nothing I had ever seen on Coruscant.

"Do you know what they are?" I shook my head.

"No, Master."

"They belong to the Trade Federation."

I was silent, taking this information in, and wondering just what it would mean for us. I knew that the Republic was currently battling the Federation and its separatist ideals. And I knew that we, as Jedi (or, more accurately, one Jedi and one Padawan), supported the Republic. We wouldn't be welcome on this planet.

My breath caught in my throat when we entered the atmosphere. Golden flames momentarily streaked across the canopy, filling the cockpit with the light of the distant sun, and then vanished. I could feel the Starfighter bucking beneath me, barely perceptible but still enough to set me on edge. Obi-Wan was a talented pilot, as I kept telling myself. But I couldn't help thinking about his apparent exhaustion during the deadly game of hide-and-seek with Jango. I couldn't help it. Ships were alien territory to me; as far as I could remember, this was only the third that I had been on. And riding on a large passenger ship was a very different thing than sitting in the cockpit of a fighter meant for one person.

Red desert greeted me as we dipped gracefully below the clouds, the engines of the ship making a faint humming sound as Obi-Wan guided it over the top of a mesa, finally ducking beneath an overhang and landing. We wouldn't be visible from the air.

He opened the canopy and got out, almost unconsciously touching his lightsaber as he did so, as if making sure that it was still there. He glanced at me with a wry expression.

"I don't suppose it's any use telling you to stay here?"

Actually, I had no wish to go with him this time. But instead of saying that, I shook my head and climbed out of the cockpit. Something would not allow me to stay. Even though I just wanted to go back to Zett, even though I longed for the Temple, even though I was so tired and sore that I felt like I would fall over where I stood, I knew that I needed to go with Obi-Wan. Maybe it was the Force. Though, when I remembered this moment years later, I wasn't entirely sure that I was being guided by the light side.

The wind was blowing fiercely. I grimaced and flipped my hood up to keep that blood-colored sand out of my eyes, but it didn't seem to bother the Jedi. He looked around, at a landscape illuminated by the setting sun, an unidentifiable emotion on his face. A strange screech echoed in the distance, making me jump and reach for my saber, but it had no affect on him. After several seconds, he turned and walked off in a seemingly random direction. Having no other choice, I followed.

We came to something that resembled a trail, albeit one that had seen several heavy rainstorms and very little traffic. It wove between the buttes and ridges of the desolate landscape, climbing abruptly and passing several moderately high cliffs. As the last of the sun's rays disappeared from the Geonosian sky, I stumbled and almost fell. Only Obi-Wan's fingers hooking into the hood of my robe prevented me from following several pebbles down the side of the cliff.

"Th-thank—" I began, shaky from the adrenalin, but he cut me off by bringing up his hand, glancing around warily. The wind had long since died down, leaving us with eerie silence.

An alien cry suddenly split the newborn night, and I had my lightsaber off of my belt with my thumb on the button in seconds, looking wildly around. Obi-Wan touched my shoulder, saying nothing but still managing to communicate that I was not to ignite my saber. Yet. He drew his own weapon, and we cautiously continued.

When we reached a corner that pressed up against the side of a butte, making it too narrow for more than one person to go around at a time, we stopped. Obi-Wan pointed to a spot on the ground and raised his eyebrows, as if to ask, _Are you actually going to obey me for once? _I nodded. _Yes, I'm not as stupid as I look. _ I had no wish to be the first one around that corner—I could sense something large and vicious on the other side. Not malevolent, but dangerous, all the same.

He momentarily pressed his hands together without letting go of the lightsaber and gave a small, quick bow. I repeated the gesture. _May the Force be with you._

_ Please keep him from getting hurt, _I mentally begged some unknown deity as I watched Obi-Wan edge around the corner. And because I was tired, hungry, and cold, I wryly added, _Because I have no idea how to fly the Starfighter._

The sheer callousness of the though almost made me burst out in hysterical laughter, but I quelled it just in time to hear a beast-like roar. Quickly followed by Obi-Wan's yell of shock.

I raced around the corner, igniting my lightsaber and almost impaling myself with it in the process. The fangs of a massive lizard greeted me as it hissed a threat. I didn't even think—just screamed, swinging my saber like crazy as all my training flew out the window. I'm surprised that I didn't shut my eyes.

"Nakomi!" someone gasped, grabbing onto my arm and bringing the wild sweeps of my weapon to a halt. "It's _dead. _That may have not been the..._cleanest _kill I've ever seen, but you saved my life. Though it's a miracle you didn't decapitate me in the process..."

"I'm sorry, Master." Though I wasn't really sure what I was apologizing for. Panicking? It had worked, hadn't it? The lizard lay in cauterized pieces all around us. I nudged what was left of the head with my boot, making a face as I extinguished my saber. "What was it?"

"A massiff." He placed a hand on my shoulder, guiding me past what was left of the corpse. "Cowards, scavengers. They only hunt at night, and never attack anything that they perceive as a threat. After what you did to that one, I expect they'll leave us alone."

"But what—"

A howl rose from behind us. If I didn't know better, I would have said that it sounded furious, sorrowful. Obi-Wan and I whirled around at the same time, but he was much faster. His saber was ignited before I even got mine out of the loop that held it. He swung it in an arc, much more graceful and controlled than my previous efforts at combat, and cut the second massiff in half in midair. It gave a surprised yelp, and the expression on its face was almost comical as the two separate sections tumbled off the trail.

I don't know whether it was the fact that I hadn't eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours, a side affect of my probable concussion, or a combination of the two, but I suddenly felt sick.

"Hurry." The Jedi grabbed my shoulder and rapidly pulled me away from the place where the two massiffs had died. "This is not normal behavior for these creatures. I have no idea what's going on here, but we need to move quickly."

I would have agreed, if not for the sour feeling in the pit of my stomach and the pounding in my head. Not to mention the fact that even without the wind, the chill of the desert night was rapidly reaching my bones. But if Obi-Wan was aware of any of my ailments, he didn't show it.

When we reached the trail head, on a ledge that looked out onto a massive plain, I sank to my knees with relief. My legs were burning from the rapid uphill climb that had led us here, and rest was, in my opinion, the greatest thing in existence at that moment. Though food and water ran a close second.

Obi-Wan was frowning at the plain, where indistinct shapes were lost in the murkiness of the Geonosian night. Clouds covered the stars and the numerous moons, meaning that we could barely see our hands in front of our faces without igniting our lightsabers. I watched indifferently as he pulled what looked like a pair of binoculars off of his belt and looked through them. But I leapt to my feet when he gasped.

"What? What is it?" I demanded, pulling out my saber. The past day or so had taught me that if there were any opportunity for danger to cross my path, it would usually take it.

"Take a look for yourself." He handed the binoculars to me. I frowned, glancing through them, then pulling back. Everything was strange and shimmery when seen through their lenses.

I reluctantly put them back to my eyes, scanning the desert. At first, all I saw was the same shapes, just clearer. I didn't understand what Obi-Wan was so worried about. But then I saw movement, and after several misguided attempts, I managed to zoom in.

Droids. Thousands of them, trooping into star ships. These were far more advanced than the ones that my master had been sent to fight—they actually looked as if they had been built for war, rather than being made up of scraps and defects that the Federation managed to scrape together on short notice. Every single one of them held a gun.

I swung the binoculars around, taking in the sheer number of droids. And empty star ships. Just how many would it take to fill all of those?

But I already knew the answer. Enough to turn the tide of war.

"We must warn the Council about this," Obi-Wan said grimly when I handed the binoculars back to him. "Immediately. Can you run?"

"Yes." No.

"Good. Come." He took off down the trail, but I hesitated. He glanced back at me. "What is it?"

"I...thought I heard something."

"It was nothing. Come on, Nakomi."

I followed him at a much slower pace, wishing that my knees didn't feel quite so weak.

All the way back to the Starfighter, I felt as if I were being watched.


	15. Chapter 15

I was motionless as I watched Luke tentatively wave the saber with the hand of a novice. My slight outburst at the sight of it hadn't elicited any sort of response, for which I was grateful. My thoughts right now were far too complicated right now to allow me to think up a reasonable explanation for it.

I had never expected to see this particular weapon again. It had been left on the bloodstained floor of the Temple the night that Hesid and I fled Coruscant, believing ourselves to be the last of the Order. I wasn't entirely certain if it had been abandoned by accident or on purpose; anymore, the events of that night were only clear in my dreams.

Luke's father must have been stationed at the Temple, one of the several dozen Jedi that met their fate at the hands of the invading clones. My lightsaber must have been mistaken for his. But wouldn't he have been excommunicated by then, because of his relationship with Luke's mother?

With difficulty, I pulled myself out of my thoughts and focused on what Obi-Wan had been saying for the past few minutes. Maybe that would cure the wave of dizziness that had suddenly hit me.

"...were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic," he was telling Luke, who seemed more interested in the lightsaber than what the old man was saying. "Before the dark times, before the Empire."

"I wish I had been around to see it," he murmured, the green light reflected in his eyes.

I bit back a response to the comment. It was tempting, to tell him what the Republic had been like in its last days. Weak. Faltering. The government obsessed with protocol and essentially useless, all upkeep of the failing system falling to the Jedi. They had overused us. Them. Alienated them from the public, turned them into mercenaries and police instead of the benevolent peacekeepers that they had always striven to be. Perhaps that's why no one would help them in their darkest hour—because the Senate succeeded in deifying them. We were no longer connected to the people, as we had once been. We were more of a nuisance to them than an asset.

But, of course, I didn't say any of this. Let Luke believe that his father had died defending something wonderful.

"How did my father die?" he spoke up suddenly, tearing his gaze away from the lightsaber and lowering it slightly. Obi-Wan sighed deeply.

"A...a young Jedi," he began, "named Darth Vader..." (this time, I was able to control my reaction, though just barely) "...who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader...he was seduced by the dark side of the Force."

I regarded the old man before me coolly, hoping that there was no emotion to betray me in my eyes. _Tell him the rest of the story, Obi-Wan. He now knows your connection to the man who murdered my Master, my friends, all the little ones who ceased to have futures the second he entered the Temple. But tell him what part you played in that carnage. Tell him why I would kill you now, where you stand, if I had the strength._

"The Force?" Luke seemed confused. Had his aunt and uncle told him absolutely nothing of what life was like before the Empire came?

"Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi their power," Obi-Wan explained with the patience that one uses with a slow-learning child. "It's an energy field created by all living things. It—"

R2D2 suddenly beeped, a sound that sounded much louder to me because of the adrenalin rush that the sight of my lightsaber had triggered. I jumped, and my good hand flew to my knife. Luke lowered the saber further and looked at me in exasperation.

"Can't you relax?"

"Old habits die hard," I muttered, trying to loosen my muscles before they began to cramp. _And this particular habit has kept me alive—albeit not entirely sane—for seventeen years._

Obi-Wan had turned to the little droid and was examining him, running his hands over the worn surface.

"Now, let's see if we can't figure out what you are, my little friend," he muttered, gently pressing a couple of buttons. "And where you come from."

"I saw part of the message he was—" Luke began, standing up and turning off the lightsaber. But it appeared that Obi-Wan didn't need his help. The same girl that had appeared last night, in the Larses garage, once again materialized. This time, the entire message began to play.

"General Kenobi, years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars," she started. Her voice was weary, frightened, but I still recognized the inflections of a royal upbringing. "Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person, but I'm afraid my ship has fallen under attack and my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I have placed information vital to the survival of the rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You _must _see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This...is our most desperate hour." She paused, and I recognized the beginning of the snippet that Luke and I had heard before. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."

The hologram vanished. I knotted my fingers into my tunic, drawing up my legs and glancing over at Luke. He had a faraway look on his face, as well as a slight smile. I was pretty sure I knew what was going through his head. The girl had been beautiful, and, after all, he was a young man.

Obi-Wan sat down, gazing at R2D2 with a brooding expression. The small droid stared back, completely unaffected by the weight of the message that he had just delivered. C3P0 looked nervously from one to the other. Finally, he seemed unable to bear the silence any longer.

"Well," he declared. "I'm not sure what all that was about..."

"I am," Obi-Wan replied. His eyes flicked to the lightsaber that Luke still cradled in his hands. "Luke."

"Yeah?" He snapped out of whatever fantasy he had been enjoying, looking a little disoriented.

"You must learn the ways of the Force if you're to come with me to Alderaan."

Luke laughed. It sounded a little forced to my ears. "Alderaan? I'm not going to Alderaan. I've got to take Aika back to Dima's, and then go home. It's late and I'm in for it as it is." He glanced at me, seeming to remember what Dima was like from the few times that he had met her, and added, "We both are."

Obi-Wan met his gaze and held it unwaveringly. "I need your help, Luke."

He appeared unconvinced.

"_She _needs your help."

That got his attention.

"I'm getting too old for this sort of thing, understand?"

"I can't get involved!" Luke exclaimed. Evidently, not even the mention of the girl was enough to sway his attention for long. "I've got work to do! It's not that I like the Empire—I hate it, believe me. But there's nothing I can do about it now. It's a long way from here."

The old Jedi's mouth curved upward in a humorless smile. "That's your uncle talking."

Luke sat down, sighing heavily and cradling his head with his right hand. "Oh, man, my uncle. How am I ever going to explain this?"

_Just don't tell him about it, obviously. _I said the words only inside my head. The farm boy obviously didn't have my expertise when it came to lying.

"I can teach you about the Force, Luke." Obi-Wan's voice was gentle, almost cajoling.

"Look, I—I can take you as far as Anchorhead," Luke muttered, refusing to meet his eyes. "You can get a transport there to Mos Eisley or...or wherever it is you're going."

"I—"

"I can't do this, okay?" he burst out, standing up and pacing across the hut. "I can't! I'm not my father. I'm not a hero, or a warrior, or even a soldier. I don't know anything about war. I don't know anything about being Jedi. My aunt and uncle need me, do you understand? They can't run the farm without me. I can't leave here, as much as I want to, I can't go anywhere else I—can't..."

His voice trailed off into a whisper at the end, and I could read the sorrow and regret in his posture. I knew the feeling of being trapped. Of wanting to run, to do something, but knowing that you weren't brave enough yet, weren't strong enough. And that no matter how long you waited, you never would be.

Obi-Wan had closed his eyes sometime during Luke's outburst, and now he dipped his head respectfully. "You must do what you feel is right, of course."

Demure, calm words, but I heard the disappoint and desperation behind them. Perhaps that was what drove me to my feet. More likely, it was simply a mixture of adrenalin and exhaustion-induced delirium.

"I'll go with you, Master Obi-Wan," I said. Not loudly, not boldly. But it was enough to turn the head of everyone in the hut, droids included.

"What did you say?" he asked, voice even. I swallowed hard.

_Oh, wonderful, it seems you have a death wish now, _a sarcastic voice in the back of my head spoke up. _The years with Dima must have made you crazier than you thought. Well, it's okay, we can still fix this, just sit back down and say—_

"I'll go with you. If he won't." I jerked my chin towards Luke, who was staring at me with a mixture of jealousy and shock.

"Aika," Obi-Wan began. His tone was regretful. "I appreciate your offer, truly, I do. But I need someone who is Force-sensitive. And I know for a fact that you are not."

Relief and disappointment spiked through me. The first I could understand. The second, I could not.

"Obi-Wan," I said in a low voice, holding my wrist close to my body. "I know that I'll never be a Jedi, and honestly, that doesn't bother me much. But you were a general once, weren't you? That's what the girl said. Know an asset when you see one. I know the ways of the desert. I can train soldiers in them. And I'd be of use as a translator—I speak six different languages." A lie, seeing as I was fluent in only two of those, semifluent in another, and able to get by in the last three. But a necessary one. "And—and I could be a spy, if the need arose. I know the ways of the Empire. My father..." I swallowed. "He was close to the dark lord Vader. Before he defected and fled here. He taught me his weaknesses, the workings of his inner circle, how to win the trust of the Imperial higher-ups."

Obi-Wan studied me. I could tell that he didn't believe my story, but he could find no evidence that I wasn't telling the truth. "What was your father's name, Aika?"

"That was one thing that he never told me." True enough, seeing as I hadn't known my father. "And my mother never spoke of him after his death."

He didn't ask how this fictional father of mine had died, even though I expected him to. Instead, he just stood up and walked towards me. I managed not to back away.

"You make a convincing case," he acknowledged. "You're fierce. You proved that when we first met, and it's an important quality for a member of the Rebellion to have..."

"So are you going to take me with you? To Alderaan?" It came out much more challenging than I would have liked, but Obi-Wan didn't seem to mind. He was nodding slowly.

"I believe I will. As you said, I was once a general. And I know an asset when I see one." I was about to thank him when he added, "Though I don't think you'll be of any use as a soldier. From what I can see, you can barely stand."

I grimaced. It was true, but I really didn't think that he had needed to point it out.

"Aika, you can't go," Luke said to me, his voice halfway between angry and resigned. "What about Dima?"

"She won't miss me." She would, but not for long. And, honestly? She was probably safer without me there.

"I—" His face relaxed into the expression of someone that knows he should argue but doesn't want to. "I guess I'll drive you two to Anchorhead. If the Landspeeder still works."

"Thank you." I walked out of the hut, squinting against the sun.

_You're digging your own grave, you know, _I told myself. _Either you'll die on this suicide mission or someone will figure out what you are. _

_I know._

_ Why do you think I'm going?_


	16. Chapter 16

** A/N: I really do hope that this is not one of those chapters that looks extraordinarily good right before I upload it and turns out to be a crime against the fandom when I look at it the next morning.**

-*Nineteen Years Ago*-

"Agh!" The breath left my lungs in a _whoosh _as I collided with the ground at high speed. Pain radiated through my torso, and I felt my rips creak. Tiny bits of sharp gravel burrowed into the unprotected skin of my face and hands, creating wounds that stubbornly refused to bleed, migrating towards the core of my being as if something there drew them. My head cracked against a much larger rock, and I saw stars. It didn't knock me out. But I still remained on the ground for a long time.

I was tired. So tired that not even the stinging pain of my (admittedly superficial) wounds sent more than a dull spark through my consciousness. Obi-Wan and I had run all the way here, to the beginning of the trail, from where the ledge where we had seen the droids. With every step, the cause for our desperate sprint had lost a little more meaning for me. The Federation had droids. So what? They already had droids, and look how those were working out for them. Why was it so important that we warn the Jedi Council? They'd find out sooner or later even if Obi-Wan didn't tell them, wouldn't they?

Speaking of Obi-Wan, I could hear him talking rapidly, probably transmitting a message through R4. I couldn't make out what he was saying. With the knowledge that everything had been taken care of, I relaxed, curling up into a ball. The gravel embedded in my flesh suddenly no longer mattered, now that I could sleep...

The next thing I knew, I was cradled in the seat of the Starfighter, sitting up and looking around in confusion. Obi-Wan. He must have put me here, and gone off on his own, because I didn't see him anywhere. The sky was still dark, and I was still exhausted, so what had—

Sometime tapped on the canopy. I peered out into the darkness, grateful that the cloud cover was gone and the stars were shining through, then jerked back, stifling a scream.

Two aliens were standing outside, insectine in nature. They carried dangerous-looking guns awkwardly, their limbs shaped differently than the designers must have intended, and regarded me coldly through dark, slit-like eyes. The starlight glancing off of the gossamer wings of the one was beautiful, but I barely noticed that as I groped for my lightsaber in the darkness. I had no doubt that these two creatures had been sent to capture me, and that they would kill me if I tried to resist.

Which meant that I would have to be fast about it.

I glanced at R4 in the vain hope that he could send a message to Obi-Wan, letting him know that I was in danger. But I knew what I would find even before I realized that the droid was gone. Only a strangely sorrowful pile of charred metal occupied his former post.

One of the aliens tapped on the canopy again. I flinched. It began to speak in tortured Basic, its garbled voice reaching me as if through a great distance.

"Come out," it said. "No hurt. If..."

That seemed to be the extent of its vocabulary. It glanced at its partner for help, but that one just twitched its shoulders in something that resembled a shrug. _Don't look at me, you're supposed to be the smart one here._

The first alien glanced back at me. "No hurt," it assured me with an air of finality. "Come out?"

This last one was a question, which gave me pause. Did these two even know what they were doing?

"Come out?" it repeated. I rapidly shook my head, hoping that it was a universal sign for "no." The slit-like eyes narrowed further.

It raised the gun that it was holding, and aimed it directly at me. I ducked as it fired—and wasn't surprised not to hear the sound of shattering glass. This canopy was designed to hold up under heavy laser fire in space. One shot wouldn't do it in.

The two aliens (whom I had begun to think of as Speaker and Mute) were arguing outside in a strange language made up of clicks, whistles, and shrieks. I didn't recognize it, but that didn't mean anything. There were millions of different dialects and subdialects in the galaxy, and I only really spoke two.

I straightened back up and watched them, the way that they gestured with their guns to make a point, the way that the spines on their collarbones shuddered when their equivalent of a strong emotion overtook them. Speaker seemed to be the dominant one of the pair, while Mute often backed down. That much I could tell even without being able to understand what they were saying.

Seeing them argue like that made me forget that they had destroyed the R4 unit and probably wouldn't hesitate to kill me, too. So even though, in retrospect, it seems like one of the stupidest things I ever did, I decided to taunt the creatures.

I tapped on the canopy, attracting their attention. Smiling brightly, I waved. Mute regarded me curiously, while Speaker seemed more suspicious. I put my hands on either side of my face and stretched the skin so that my eyes resembled theirs.

They didn't get it at first. Then Speaker barked something at me angrily in its own language before switching over to Basic briefly and calling me a word that I didn't recognize. I stuck my tongue out at them briefly, knowing that that was one gesture that they couldn't understand. Then I laid back down on the seat, curling into a fetal position and closing my eyes tightly. I planned on trying to go back to sleep until Obi-Wan got back and chased these things away.

A sudden thud caused me to sit bolt upright, not reaching for my lightsaber yet but wary just the same. I looked up to see that Speaker was balancing on top of the canopy, wings spread for balance, staring down at me with undisguised malice. My fingers closed around my saber as I held the alien's gaze.

_Stay calm, _I told myself, trying to stop my muscles from tensing in fear. _Stay calm. They can't get in. They—_

Speaker tore its eyes away from mine, glancing towards the back of the Starfighter. I watched, apprehensive, as it made several gestures and called out in its own language. The only thing that actually sounded like a word was Vekkal. I got the feeling that this was the name of the wingless creature that I had been calling Mute.

A few clanking noises reached me. As if the Geonosian back there had opened up one of the fighter's access panels and was poking around in it. Uneasy, I tentatively reached for the control panel. Even if I couldn't fly this thing, I could still turn on the engines and fry Vekkal to a crisp.

But I froze as the canopy soundlessly retracted.

Speaker (I had no other name to call it) moved rapidly, maintaining its footing on the smooth glass and finally hooking its prehensile toes over the edge of the canopy. I crouched immobile in the cockpit, and it didn't move from its perch. Both of us remained motionless for several moments, just staring at each other, waiting for some sort of cue. My mind was going as fast as my heart, every thought fragmented and incomplete, even though I knew that I should be taking advantage of this temporary truce, formulating a plan, figuring out how I was going to get to safety—

The alien lunged for me at the same moment that I ignited my lightsaber.

I scrambled to the side, reaching out to the Force and using it to enhance my reflexes. With its steady energy flowing through me, I was out of the Starfighter's cockpit before Speaker had even landed on the seat, bolting for the badlands. I had gotten it into my head that I would be able to lose my pursuers among the buttes and ridges.

I was connected to the Force again, almost as deeply as I had been on Kamino. Never mind that it aggravated my head wound. Never mind that it exhausted me to the point of being weak in the knees to keep it up. Being woven into this web, feeling it pulse in my veins alongside my blood, listening to its whispers inside my head...it was the only way I was going to make it out of this.

Vekkal darted in front of me. I barely had time to notice the smears of grease on its hands, testament to its foray into the inner workings of the Starfighter, before I swung at him. He leapt backwards, clicking in alarm as I advanced. I was struggling to keep my mind clear, to remember my training, relying mostly on my muscle memory to carry me through the complex but effective motions. With every move I made, it was becoming harder and harder for Vekkal to avoid me. Even in my current state of exhaustion.

I heard the buzzing of wings, felt Speaker coming for me, and dropped into a crouch as it zipped over my head. Standing back up, I held my lightsaber out in front of me in a defensive position, breathing hard and attempting to focus. There was no way that I could reach it with my saber. I would have to bring it within range—but it was already taking everything I had to tune into the Force, there was no way I could manipulate it...

Vekkal must have sensed that I was distracted, because it lunged forward, almost coming into contact with me before I spun around with a yell, swinging my saber in a shallow arc. I had no real wish to kill these creatures, or even hurt them more than superficially. After all, I was a Jedi. I had had the evils of hurting sentient beings drummed into me since childhood. That was why I kept my lightsaber in close to my body, thinking that Vekkal was further away than it really was. Instead, it was just close enough for me to accidentally cut its fingers off.

It immediately leapt backwards, shrieking and hissing, drawing its mutilated hands in close to its body. I lowered my lightsaber in shock. I hadn't meant to. All I wanted was to get away—

Something slammed into me from behind, knocking me to the ground even harder than I had fallen earlier that night. My saber skittered out of my hand, rolling away over the rocks. I watched the blade flicker out as Speaker's toes dug into my back. There was no way I could get it back, even by using the Force. My head was pounding and the vision in my left eye was so blurry that I could barely see anything. I didn't know what it meant, only that I couldn't concentrate.

Vekkal was making a high-pitched keening noise, crouching down over by the Starfighter. I wished that it would be quiet in the same thought that I berated myself for crippling it so thoroughly. The list of creatures that I had hurt since leaving the Temple was growing steadily longer: the clone on Kamino. The massiff on the trail. And now the Geonosian. Just what was Aayla going to think when she heard about all of this?

Speaker stepped off of me and rapidly hauled me to my feet, having dropped its gun somewhere. My lightsaber, it kicked under the Starfighter.

It chirped angrily at Vekkal, who came forward, trembling, to stand beside us. It shoved me forward, still holding onto my upper arms, twisting so hard that I felt my bones creak. I squirmed, but didn't cry out.

"You said you wouldn't hurt me," I gasped. My legs seemed unable to bear my weight at the moment.

"Only if came out, Jedi." I could have sworn that I heard glee in Speaker's tone. "Not if fought."

I didn't look at Vekkal. I didn't try to escape, or tap into the Force, or just completely let go of my common sense and start screaming in the hopes that Obi-Wan would hear me.

Instead, I bowed my head and walked forward, feeling my flesh beginning to give beneath the Geonosian's fingers, wishing that I had never left the Temple.


	17. Chapter 17

**Allow me to apologize. This chapter took far longer to write than it should have.**

-*!*-

"Hey. What's that?"

I opened my eyes, sitting up straight and yawning. The harsh desert sun immediately invaded my retinas, and I winced. I hadn't slept. The motion of the Landspeeder over the rocky desert and the dull ache in my wrist wouldn't allow that. But I had managed to rest, albeit superficially, without dreaming.

Luke was driving. He piloted the Landspeeder with an ease that I was (for some reason) jealous of, having insisted on it back at Obi-Wan's house. Evidently, now that it was light out, he was no longer content to trust the vehicle to C3P0. Though personally, I had felt safer with the droid in the driver's seat.

Now, the farm boy was slowing down, leaning over the controls and peering at something up ahead. I squinted. Whatever it was, I couldn't make it out through the haze of sunlight. I wished that I had taken the time to put on my helmet before we left, instead of putting it in the back of the Landspeeder because I assumed that I would get too hot with it on.

"It looks like a Sandcrawler," Obi-Wan interjected, leaning forward slightly. Because of the limited space in the vehicle, I was pressed between him and the side. Even forcibly cut off from the Force, I could sense the alternating waves of peace and regret emanating from him. The two contradictory feelings made it jarring to be so close to him, though Luke seemed oblivious. Maybe the skills of Jedi tended to skip a generation.

"What happened to it?" he exclaimed, bringing the Landspeeder to a graceful halt. I stared at the smoking remains of the Sandcrawler, the charred bodies of the Jawas who had owned it, and my stomach lurched.

Luke was climbing out, eyes fixed on the carnage, and Obi-Wan was poised to follow him. I grabbed him by the back of the tunic, leaning across the old Jedi to do so.

"What are you doing?" I demanded. "Whoever did this might still be here! And we don't have any weapons."

"There's no one here," Obi-Wan assured me. I glared at him. "Only pain, and fear."

"See?" Luke asked, trying to disentangle my fingers from the fabric. "We're safe."

I let go of Luke's tunic and leaned back in my seat, hunching down so that I was less visible from a distance. Closing my eyes, I turned away from the wreckage. "Fine. Go ahead. But I'm staying here."

They didn't question me. Evidently, they had gotten used to my eccentricities. I heard them poking around, examining the bodies, discussing who could have done this. Though my eyes were closed, the scene remained burned in my mind. Jawas were a relatively small race. About the size of other species' children...

"It looks like Sandpeople did this, alright," Luke was saying. "Look, there's even bantha tracks. But...I've never heard of them hitting anything this big before. Usually it's just nomads and small settlements."

"They didn't do this." Obi-Wan's voice was low, measured. I recognized it from my childhood. When he was trying to keep someone calm. "But we're meant to think that they did. See, these tracks are side-by-side—Sandpeople always ride single file, in order to hide their numbers."

Evenings spent watching long trains of banthas wind across the desert with Dima flashed into my mind. He was right.

There was silence for a little while, and I listened to their boots crunching on the sand. Then Luke, uneasy, said, "These are the same Jawas that sold us R2 and 3P0..."

Behind me, the droids shifted uncomfortably. R2 quietly beeped something, and 3P0 shushed him.

"I'm certain it's nothing. Can't you go five minutes without asking me something?"

"And these laser burns." Obi-Wan continued, unable to hear the droids. "Far too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."

My breath caught in my throat and unwanted adrenalin spiked in my bloodstream. Imperial Stormtroopers? All the way out here? Seventeen years expecting this day, and now, when it had finally come—

_ Stop it, _I commanded myself. Opening my eyes and twisting around in my seat, I looked at 3P0 and R2. They had mentioned the rebellion, and one of them was carrying a hologram from someone who was obviously a high-ranking member of it. The soldiers were looking for them. Not me. My existence was, as yet, unknown. And besides, the Emperor wouldn't send this many Stormtroopers after one half-trained ex-Jedi, would he? There was no way I was that important.

The thoughts did little for my racing heart, but I chose to ignore my fear for the moment. I looked over at Luke, who was nudging a Jawa corpse with the toe of his boot. His expression was halfway between disgust and sorrow when he looked up.

"Why would Imperial troops want to slaughter Jawas?" he asked Obi-Wan. I looked at the droids again, and this time, 3P0 looked back, obviously annoyed with me for staring at them. Something clicked in my brain.

I rapidly glanced over at Luke, but his expression told me that he had already come to the same conclusion that I had. He bolted for the Landspeeder.

C3P0 rapidly climbed out, turning back to help R2D2. He intercepted his master, holding out his metal hands in the universal "stop" gesture.

"Sir," he began, "please, think—"

Luke brushed past him, climbing into the driver's seat. Obi-Wan was striding towards us.

"Wait!" he called, quickening his pace. "It's too dangerous—"

Ignoring him, Luke glanced at me. "Are you coming?"

I hesitated, then nodded. It wouldn't be very hard for the Stormtroopers to make the jump from Beru and Owen to Dima and I. And though I was terrified for them, I was more scared for my own makeshift family.

Skepticism fought with panic in his face as he started the engine and began to steer towards his home. "You're not going to talk me out of it?"

"I understand..." I began, not really sure how to phrase it at first. "I understand needing to know."

He said nothing, just concentrated on steering. I closed my eyes and tried not to remember.

-*!*-

I realize now that I should have told him to turn around when we saw the smoke rising in the distance. I should have made him turn back, because even though I understood the need to know what had happened, I also understood just how painful meeting that need could be. But instead, I drew my legs to my chest, hugging them and watching Luke out of the corner of my eye. I saw the way that his hands tightened on the controls, and the way that his face froze. And I knew what we would find. But I didn't tell him to turn back.

The Landspeeder went slower and slower as we got closer to the farm. I put my legs down and put a hand on Luke's shoulder, wanting to say something to him before he saw what had happened to his home, but one look at his face made me think better. We finally drew to a stop near the outer vaporator pits, which had bonfires at the bottom instead of machinery. His eyes fixed on what little remained of his house, Luke stumbled out of the vehicle and stood, expression entirely blank. Then he cried out.

"Uncle Owen! Aunt Beru!"

I got out of the Landspeeder, walking over to stand by him, but he took off, running for the smoking shell of his house. I followed, much slower.

I watched him run through the wreckage, yelling for his family the whole time. It hurt, yes, it brought back memories, I wanted to turn and run through the desert and leave him to his misery, but I knew that whatever I was feeling, it was countless times worse for him. He needed me to stay, when he was finally done.

I walked over to him after he had fallen to his knees, staring numbly at something on the ground. I didn't look at what had caught his attention long, just stood next to him with my head bowed. I didn't try to touch him.

"Why would they have done this?" Luke's voice was low, full of pain. I just shook my head.

"I don't have an answer for you."

"No one ever does." He stood up. "I've been asking questions my whole life, and no one ever tells me the truth, and I wouldn't expect to start getting it now."

I said nothing.

"I shouldn't have gone after that droid," he whispered. "If I had just stayed here..."

I understood, more than I could ever tell him.

_If I had gone with her, I could have saved her. If I had stayed, I could have killed him._

_ If I had been there, I wouldn't be so alone now._

I could feel his grief and shock morphing to hate and anger, emotions that I was fleetingly familiar with. Evidently, Luke had a much greater capacity for them than I did. It was overwhelming just standing next to him. I stepped backwards, but it was useless, because he was walking back towards the Landspeeder.

"Don't you want to bury them?" I asked quietly, glancing at the ground.

"I'll bury them when their murderers are dead," he replied. Reluctantly, I trailed after him.

"Do you think that Di—"

"Your mother's fine, Nakomi, stop worrying about everything," he snapped. "She's great. The Stormtroopers wouldn't have come for her. It's my family who are—" He stopped, unable to bring himself to say it. Sensing that now was the time for human contact, I reached out to place a hand on his shoulder, but froze.

There was something new surrounding him. Blacker than the already-shadowy aura of his rage, it made my internal organs twist and my mind scream memories. I slowly backed away from Luke, unable to meet his gaze when he turned to me. I knew it. I knew what he had called upon, however innocently. He probably didn't even realize what it was. Or that he had done it.

But that didn't change the fact that he was channeling the dark side of the Force right now.


	18. Chapter 18

** A/N: This will probably be one of the last few chapters for most of the summer, written while listening to "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" by the Offspring. (Which is why it may have a different tone than the other chapters.) I've been preoccupied, studying for finals and completing end-of-the-year projects, so I haven't had a lot of time to write. And while I plan on having a lot more free time when school lets out for the summer, I won't have a reliable internet connection. So I won't be able to upload any new chapters until late July or early August. I hope that the few of you who actually pay any attention to me at all will understand, and won't lose interest in this story because of the time that it will be dormant. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for your time. As always, your patronage is greatly appreciated. Though not as much as reviews would be...**

-*Nineteen Years Ago*-

They marched me across the desert in the dead of night, having taken my lightsaber and my robe, making sure that nothing was hidden in it. Vekkal carried both of these in his mutilated hands. He and Speaker, who held my arms behind me at all times, communicated almost constantly in their own harsh language. I kept my head bowed, didn't even try to figure out what they were saying. Another dialect would have served me well, especially in this situation, but I couldn't concentrate. Pain pounded through my every thought, twisting my mental power to its will, making me a prisoner in my own body. The blurring in my eye had disappeared, leaving in its place a splitting pain between my temples that left my legs weak and my stomach unsettled. Speaker had no patience for my nausea, dragging me when I stopped to retch. Its claws continuously dug into the soft skin of my arms, lancing bruises that its twisting fingers had left. It tripped me, almost dislocating my shoulders on multiple occasions, and steered me towards holes that left my ankles sprained and aching after I stepped into them. It obviously felt that it was its duty to take the injury of its companion out on the one who had caused it.

Not that Speaker had a lot of patience for Vekkal, either. The wingless Geonosian's side of the ongoing conversation sounded pleading and petulant, the pain of his missing fingers evident in his tone. The guilt that I felt over the half-accident that had taken them was yet another pain, pulsing dark and sickening beneath my headache. Speaker responded curtly and with anger, having no time for Vekkal's complaints. I wondered where they were bringing me. Maybe they were just dragging me out into the middle of the desert to sacrifice me to their god or eat me or whatever. I really didn't care at this point; I just wanted to be able to rest, and stop the pain. My only real concern was what they would do with my saber. Would they hang it on the wall of their hive, beside the weapons of other creatures, Jedi and civilian alike, that they had killed? Would they just throw it away? Or would Speaker claim it as its own?

The thought of the same hands that were currently shredding the skin of my arms to a bloody mess clutching the grip of the lightsaber that I had built myself made me shudder, eliciting more of a reaction than the idea of death could. Had I had a choice, I would have wished the weapon back to the Temple. Where Aayla could find it after news of my disappearance reached her.

The sun started to rise after I had lost one of my boots to yet another hole. I was limping, the sole of my foot spotted with gravel and the spines of plants, but if anything, Speaker was forcing me to go faster. My head was still bowed, my eyes fixed on the small smears of blood that I left in the sand. My head hurt worse every time I blinked, and I longed to just keep my eyes closed, but I had to be ready to at least try to avoid whatever obstacle Speaker wanted to subject me to next. The black space behind my eyelids held nothing for me, just like the horizon.

"Look." The guttural word of Basic took a couple seconds to sink in. Neither of my captors had made any effort to talk to me since the winged one beat me into submission, and I certainly hadn't expected them to start now.

"What?" My voice was little more than a croak, the product of my dry throat and mouth.

_"Look." _Speaker took one hand off my arm and dug it into my sand-matted hair, its claws scraping my scalp as it jerked my head back. My first thought was that it was trying to break my neck, but then I saw what it was trying to direct my attention towards.

A cluster of stone spires, rising majestically in the harsh light of the alien dawn. The bases were dotted with the black specks of entrances and green-gold figures flitted around the tops. Spotting the glitter of gossamer wings, I realized that they were Geonosians. This must be their hive. I had to admit, the structure was impressive, beautiful in a spiny, inhuman way that I couldn't really appreciate at the time.

So this was where they were bringing me.

"See, Jedi?" Speaker pulled my head back further, meeting my dead-eyed gaze with its own. "Many. We are many."

"Am I food?" I asked. The intimidation tactic didn't work on me. I hadn't been able to fight off two Geonosians—what made them think that the prospect of two thousand more would frighten me further? "That's why you brought me home. To feed your larvae?"

Speaker barked a laugh. I wasn't sure just how well it understood me when I talked, fast, smooth, and articulate from a lifetime of speaking the language that it barely had a handle on.

"No, Jedi," it replied, pushing me forward. Its foot caught on the heel of my boot and my foot slipped out, leaving me completely barefoot, but I said nothing. "Your kind? No eat. Never."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Speaker let go of my head, replacing its grip on my arm, and refused to answer. I kept my eyes on the hive. Were they bringing me before the queen? Was I going to spend the rest of my life as a slave in an alien nest? My pain grew as the light brightened, and I struggled not to avert my gaze from the horizon. I just wanted to know.

Of course, the desire fled my mind when I stepped on a jagged rock that sliced straight up into my heel.

I screamed, unable to keep from reacting to the pain. Speaker finally stopped propelling me forward, glancing down at my bleeding foot, and made a sound halfway between a snort of disgust and a sigh of resignation. I balanced on one foot, holding the other up and squeezing my eyes shut. Trying not to focus on the cut.

Vekkal trilled something, coming up beside Speaker. He had trailed behind us for the majority of the journey, but now he stood face-to-face with the winged Geonosian, speaking in their whistling, shrieking language. The creature holding me testily clicked something back, then made the snort-sigh sound again. Speaker shoved me towards Vekkal, who regarded me with undisguised hate in his eyes. I quickly glanced away from his face. I had no idea what was going on.

"Walk?" Speaker growled in my ear. It was unmistakably a question. I shook my head.

"No. My foot's hurt too bad."

I didn't expect them to care. Before, Speaker had just dragged me when I either refused to or was unable to walk, but now, it just started jabbering at Vekkal again. He snapped back. I wasn't sure what they were saying, but they both sounded furious. Finally, Vekkal tossed my saber and robe aside and turned around, maneuvering into what looked like an uncomfortable position. It was several seconds before I realized what he wanted me to do.

Speaker let go of me, evidently deciding that I was in no shape to fight back or run away. I hopped forward and Vekkal picked me up as I gingerly took hold of the horns sprouting from his collarbone, what was left of his hands curling under my knees in order to keep my feet from brushing the ground. Amazingly enough, his touch was gentle, as if he were deliberately trying not to hurt me.

Speaker, satisfied that I would reach the hive without further incident, scooped up my robe and my saber and launched into the air, wings glittering in the light of the newly-risen sun. It was gone almost immediately, and I was alone with Vekkal.

He walked much faster than he had when following Speaker, head held high, despite the load that he was carrying. He was stooped over in order to better accommodate me. I imagined how much his hands must still hurt, especially now that he was supporting my legs with them. I lowered my head while tightening my grip on Vekkal's shoulder-horns. Across where his shoulder blades would be if he were human was a row of small bumps, cauterized and old-looking. With a jolt, I realized that they were the remains of wings. Someone had cut them off of him.

"What happened?" I whispered. "To your wings. Who cut them off?"

He gave no sign that he had heard me, which wasn't surprising. He probably didn't speak Basic.

"Was it a Jedi?" The aged wounds looked vaguely as if they had been created by a lightsaber.

Once again, Vekkal remained silent.

"Was it a...Sith?" A chill ran down my spine at the very mention of the monsters that utilized the Dark Side of the Force. But the word had no affect on the Geonosian.

I said nothing else for a very long time, simply watching the hive grow closer and closer, taking comfort in the steady rhythm of Vekkal's steps. As the sun rose higher, the Geonosians flying around the tops of the spires disappeared. Sweat began to gather beneath my tunic and breeches, stinging the wounds on my feet as it ran down. I was grateful when one of the shady entrances came into view.

My fingers twitched on Vekkal's shoulder-horns as he carried me into the hive. I could feel multiple things within its depths, even though I had given up on trying to use the force after my capture. Something ancient, alien, and inexplicably female, which I guessed to be the queen. Something cold and dark that terrified me. And something familiar, soothing—

My heart leapt in my chest, my weary hopelessness evaporating. _Obi-Wan._

Vekkal's hands shifted slightly on my legs. I felt the burned places where his fingers used to be, and looked at the wing stumps on his back again. Very carefully, I laid my cheek against the plating of his exoskeleton, unaware if what I was doing was a breach of Geonosian etiquette or not. In sharp contrast to my human skin, his was cool, hard, and spiny.

"I'm sorry," I said in a low voice. "For hurting you. And whatever happened to your wings...I'm sorry for that, too. I know you can't understand me, but I..."

I trailed off, lifting my head away from him. Several seconds passed by as Vekkal carried me deeper into the tunnels. And then, unexpectedly, he glanced at me over his shoulder. I blinked.

"I—"

"Save your pity, little Jedi," he muttered in lightly accented Basic. My jaw almost dropped. "The loss of my wings was a deserved punishment. As for what you did, I have come to expect violence from those who carry weapons."

"You speak—"

"It was this tongue that cost me my place in the winged castes," Vekkal growled. "A reminder of it is unneeded."

I stayed silent, absolutely shocked. He spoke my mother tongue like it was his first language, too.

"Your fear, however much you may be feeling, is misplaced, human. You have nothing to fear from my kind. We do not harm larvae."

"But—"

"The one that you should be afraid of belongs to your own species," he continued just as we entered a huge chamber that reminded of the Temple, with its size and sweeping architecture.

Seven creatures waited for us. Three Neimoidians, nervous-looking and dressed in the clothing of high stations, three Geonosians, and a human. A man, to be more precise, elderly and refined-looking. His hands were folded respectfully in front of him, his face benevolent.

But as soon as I saw him, it felt like I had been punched in the stomach.

Tendrils of something dark and slippery wove through the room, emanating from him. I felt them coil around me, curious. Shadows as dark as oil slipped through my mind, weaving around my heart and lungs, and my eyes were wide with shock as Vekkal slung me off of his back and placed me on the floor, backing away and bowing. I stood on my injured foot for several seconds before the pain registered and I lifted it off of the floor. The old man raised his eyebrows at the blood that it left behind.

"You assured me that the padawan wouldn't be injured," he muttered to one of the Geonosians standing near him, one that had the affectation of an old man, with a beard and a cane. He shook his head.

"Krylla and Vekkal were instructed to be gentle," he responded in Basic just as fluent as Vekkal's. One of the other Geonosians adjusted its wings self-consciously, and I recognized it as Speaker. Or Krylla, as it must have been named.

Very slowly, I sank to my knees, being careful with my foot and putting my hand to my head. The darkness coming off of the old man was whispering to me. I couldn't hear what it was saying, and the fact that I couldn't make its voice out made me...angry. Rage was building behind my ribcage, but I was too tired to even think about acting on it.

"I was unaware that Obi-Wan had another apprentice," the old man said, crouching down to be on my level. He took hold of my chin, turning my head this way and that to look at me, but gently. His face was kind, but his eyes were cold. "I had heard that Anakin alone was almost too much for him to handle."

"He's not my Master." The words were forced out, loud and self-conscious to be heard over the voice of the shadows in my brain. They cooed of power and safety, belonging found in isolation.

"Really?" He looked vaguely interested. "Then who are you, padawan? What are you doing here?"

With great effort, I shoved my way through the twining darkness and looked him in the eye. "My name is Nakomi Swift. I am the padawan of Aayla Securum. And I have business here with Master Obi-Wan."

"Is that so?" He continued scrutinizing me. The Neimoidians were getting restless, exchanging glances. Finally, the man stood and turned to them.

"I expected more from a child found in Obi-Wan's Starfighter. I see nothing remarkable about her; rather plain, actually, and weak in the Force."

"Does she change the plan, Count Dooku?" one of the Neimoidians asked, his voice heavily accented and his eyes darting back and forth between me and the old man.

Dooku shook his head, looking unconcerned. "No, not at all. I had hoped to use her as bait to draw out Obi-Wan, but...he wouldn't give himself up for a weak little youngling."

I struggled to my feet, the darkness prompting me, seeding anger and hate in my heart and giving me the strength to stand. It crouched in my bones and hissed as Dooku gave his next order with a careless wave of his hand.

"She is useless. Kill her."


	19. Chapter 19

**A relatively boring chapter. My apologies.**

-*!*-

"Something wrong?"

Annoyance. Just a minor emotion, one that took no effort at all, laced into the heavy grief of his voice. None of the controlled anger or natural hate or creeping, almost unnoticeable insanity that I had noticed in—that I had noticed when I was just a youngling. But maybe that came with time. Maybe those feelings were only broadcast into the voice after years of calling upon the side of the Force that I had only once been able to bring myself to touch.

"No," I told Luke. He probably knew I was lying, in the extraordinary way teenagers always have when adults are being less than truthful with them, but he didn't press it. "I thought I saw something."

"What?"

"It doesn't matter." I shook my head and walked quickly in the direction of the Landspeeder, stiff-legged, being very careful not to pass too close to him. The thought of sitting next to him on the way back to the Sandcrawler, being in such close proximity while that—that _thing _sang its empty promises into his mind and played hell with his heart, it brought nausea to the back of my throat. Not the kind stemming from hunger or illness, but something beyond fear. An instinct that had been woven into the fibers of my being since I was ten, maybe even longer, even deeper than the one that commanded me to survive. "We had—I don't feel good about leaving Obi-Wan alone. Defenseless, and—Luke, I wish you hadn't had to see this, believe me, I know what it's like, I know that the pain never goes away, and I know that—that—"

I faltered and came to a halt, my eyes wide, but not taking in the desert before me. Where had this come from? The sympathetic rush of words that I knew would only make things worse? No, I _didn't _know what it was like, not really. Because every pain is separate and different and lonely, entirely new. I remembered kind words from Dima, from the handful of others that knew my secret or something similar to it. Sorry meant nothing, and so did wishes. Condolences were useless. There were times, in your childhood or barely out of it, that you just wanted everyone to be quiet and stop talking to you. They could stay, they could be near, reminding you that you weren't the last living creature in the galaxy, but silence was what you really craved.

He came up behind me, but didn't try to touch me. Just stood beside me, and said in a low voice, "Yeah, you're right. I think old Ben could handle himself in an emergency, but we'd better get back."

We got into the Landspeeder together, not speaking, not meeting each other's gazes. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The darkness kept to itself, wrapping around him and paying no attention to me. I glanced at Luke's face out of the corner of my eye. His expression was controlled, almost serene. There was none of the pain that he had to be feeling over the deaths of the only family he had ever known. Maybe he had come to some comforting conclusion.

Maybe he was drawing strength from the foul thing even now weaving its tentacles through him.

We said nothing during the ride, and I once again wished for my helmet as I focused on the desert landscape speeding past us. It would have hidden my eyes, provided me with a false sense of security. And it would have protected my sun-scarred face from the elements, though at this point, it was more than a little redundant.

Obi-Wan and the droids were burning the corpses of the Jawas when we got back. I buried my mouth and nose in the crook of my elbow and closed my eyes against the foul smoke, gladly taking the sweat-and-sand perfume of my tunic over the smell of charring flesh. Luke leapt out of the Landspeeder before I could, walking up to the old Jedi with his back straight and his head held high. I wasn't sure if it was grief I read in his posture or something else.

As I clambered out, intent on going around back and retrieving my helmet (more for the piece of cloth attached to it as a makeshift filter than for anything else), Obi-Wan met Luke's eyes and placed a hand on his shoulder. The farm boy didn't shake off his touch, but I saw him tense. Now was not the time for contact.

"There's nothing you could have done, Luke, had you been there," Obi-Wan said gently, his gaze unwavering. "You'd have been killed, too, and the droids would be in the hands of the Empire."

I felt a flicker of annoyance as I jerked helmet onto my head, the scarred leather familiar beneath my fingers. I glared at him from beneath the visor, knowing that my eyes were invisible beneath the black glass.

_You know loss, don't you, old man? You know suffering. You know grief. It's come to you plenty in your long life, sinking its claws into the flesh of your soul...and you've caused your fair share of it. Shouldn't you know by now that what you're doing now is useless? Or is it just another part of your act?_

"I want to come with you to Alderaan," Luke said. His voice was even, almost nonchalant. "There's nothing here for me now. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi. Like—like my father."

The hint of emotion, the crack in the armor that the pause showed gave me both hope and trepidation. Was it a sign of humanity, or instability?

Obi-Wan nodded, as if he had always known that Luke would change his mind. I studied his face suspiciously, especially the eyes, but there was no sign that he'd used any of the tricks that I was so fond of.

"Are you sure that you want that for yourself?" I called to Luke, who glanced back at me. My hands were the only part of my skin that was visible now, and I folded my arms, hiding them from sight. "It's not an easy life. The training may kill you, especially because you're so old, and you'll live a hunted existence until the Empire is overthrown. Running and hiding like an animal."

Obi-Wan studied me. "And how—"

"My father made a living out of killing the last of the Jedi before he defected." Amazing how easy it was to lie about this father of mine. "He told me things, about their ways. He told me the exact sound that a Knight of the Old Republic makes when you cut his—"

I stopped. The vicious tone that had crept into my voice had caught me completely off-guard. Obi-Wan, as well, if the way that he was looking at me was any indication. It took a moment for me to overlay his expression with one in my memory, but when I did, hate boiled in my stomach. How dare he look at me like I was some sort of shadow-thing, touched by the Dark Side, thriving on pain? Maybe I hadn't been strong these past years in the desert. Maybe I hadn't honored the memory of my fallen kind, what with my bouts of madness, my screams in the middle of the night, my tears that came for no reason at strange times—pricking the backs of my eyes even as I thought it. But I had never once touched the darkness.

It called to me, in the space after I woke up from a nightmare and right before I started screaming for Dima. But I never answered it. I never would.

_More than you can say, Master of our Chosen One. Did his slaughter of the younglings bring balance to the Force? _

"I've made my choice," Luke told me. "This is the only way I'll be able to avenge my family."

"No. No, it isn't. You don't have to join a dying Order to kill murderers, Luke. Do you understand what it means to be a Jedi? You have to forsake anger, hate, pleasure. Have you ever been with a woman? You won't be able to take a lover—"

"Aika," Obi-Wan said sharply, giving me the look again. "We'll speak of this later." I had never had the ability to read minds (and even if I had developed it during my training in the ways of the Force, I probably would have forsaken it years before), but I was almost certain that I knew what he was thinking. That I had a hatred for the Order, that I was sadistic, that I had inherited my nonexistent father's love for the hunt. Especially when it involved Jedi, the enemies of the Empire. He was regretting telling me that I could come with him and join the Rebellion.

"We had better go," Luke spoke up. The droids, who had been waiting in awkward silence, immediately moved towards the Landspeeder. Obi-Wan did, as well, but I moved quickly and caught his arm, feeling age-withered muscles and brittle bone beneath the sleeve of his robe. Luke didn't notice, which is why I seized the opportunity.

I didn't apologize. A human, unbalanced and hostile as she may be, has no need to apologize to a monster. "Master Obi-Wan. Are you sure that you want to take Luke with you?"

"Aika—" he began impatiently, and I could see the first stirrings of real hate hidden beneath his expression of annoyance.

"I'm not concerned for his well-being, he is nothing to me." Again the vicious tone. A chill ran up my spine, in spite of the desert heat. "But there is something wrong with him. He doesn't act angry. And yet..."

I trailed off, unsure of how to phrase Luke's newfound connection with the Dark Side without revealing just how much I knew. But Obi-Wan seemed to understand what I was trying to say.

"It will fade," he told me, his annoyance disappearing. "With proper training and guidance, it will fade. Weaker men than him have defeated it."

"But what is it?" I congratulated myself on the redundant question; it was a nice touch.

He just shook his head. "You needn't concern yourself with that."

Obi-Wan climbed into the Landspeeder, and I followed him, Luke gunning the engine as soon as I was in. None of us spoke until about halfway to Mos Eisley, when the old Jedi startled me out of my thoughts of Dima and how worried she probably was about me.

"You called me Master," he said. I barely heard him over the wind.

"What?"

"Aika, you called me Master." He turned to look at me, and I was sure that his blue eyes met my violet ones, even with a visor between us. "It's been awhile since I heard that."

"Heard what?" Luke asked. Obi-Wan ignored him.

"My father told me that that's what Jedi call each other," I said by way of an explanation. He didn't quite believe me, I saw it on his face.

It didn't matter.

-*!*-

"How long have you had these droids?" the stormtrooper asked, the voice coming through his helmet electronic and hitching.

"About three or four seasons," Luke said smoothly.

Mos Eisley clattered around me as I tried to disappear into myself, drawing my legs up to my chest and tucking my helmeted head down. Stormtroopers. The extras in my nightmares. Though in reality, they were far more of a threat than the usual star; after all, there were so much more of them than him. And they were currently questioning the driver of the vehicle that I was in.

I wondered if they could tell what I was. The identity of my childhood was locked inside of me, had been for seventeen years. But stormtroopers...Imperial soldiers. Killers of Jedi. Bred to slay the Force-sensitive and ensure that their masters' reign would continue.

Were these the adult versions of the children that I had seen all those years ago on Kamino? No, they couldn't be. Those boys had to be dead now. War, old age. Whatever genetic time bomb made them so disposable.

"They're for sale if you want them," Obi-Wan added. I barely heard him.

My blood turned acidic in my veins as one of the other troopers nudged me with the barrel of his gun. My vision blacked out momentarily as adrenalin flushed through my body, then returned in clarity that almost hurt.

"What's wrong with him?" the trooper asked, voice bored, unconcerned.

_Him? _Of course. He couldn't see my hair, falling a little ways past my shoulders. The helmet covered my unmistakably female face. My chest was hidden. No wonder I had been mistaken for a man. Or more likely a boy, with my small frame.

"You'll have to forgive him, he's a bit sun-touched," Obi-Wan said apologetically. "Wandered off into the desert when he was just a boy. Still afraid of his own shadow, you know."

The stormtrooper, a stranger to this planet, probably didn't know, but he just grunted some sort of agreement and walked away. He was obviously content to let this ragtag little family, with its dead-eyed elder son, ancient father, mismatched servants, and poor mad child, pass, but his partner had other ideas.

"Let me see your identification," the first clone told Luke. I heard the rustle of fabric as he searched for it, rapidly becoming more frantic when he didn't find it. A fresh batch of adrenalin flooded my bloodstream with the first release still going golden. Was this really how it was all going to end? Brought in for not having an ID. Questioned. Me especially, for "masquerading" as a young boy when I was so obviously a woman. Luke would crack, I had no doubt of that, maybe exhibit signs of the powers that I was beginning to doubt he had. They would test the rest of us for attunement to the Force. And that would be the end. I would die instantly from a laser wound in the back of the head, a fugitive's lonely execution. The body of yet another unknown Jedi would sink beneath the sand of Tatooine.

"You don't need to see his identification," Obi-Wan said calmly. The timbre of his voice...it was familiar to me, though I usually relied on eye contact alone when performing this trick.

My head raised a little.

"We...don't need to see his...identification." The trooper sounded dazed, almost sleepy.

"These are not the droids you're looking for."

"These are not the droids we're looking for," the clone agreed. His voice was more confident now.

"He can go about his business," Obi-Wan continued. I saw him gesture to a very confused Luke out of the corner of my eye.

"You can go about your business," the trooper told Luke, who just stared at him.

The old Jedi nudged the farm boy. "Come on, now. Move along. Your brother doesn't look too good."

On cue, I dropped my head and moaned.

"Move along," the trooper repeated. His armor creaked as he bobbed his head up and down. "Move along..."

"I always hate doing that," Obi-Wan said grimly, rubbing his eyes as soon as we were past the checkpoint. I lifted my head again and warily put my legs down.

"What did you _do_?" Luke exclaimed.

"Simply an old mind-trick. I'll teach you one day, it's rather easy. The trick...is not pushing too hard." He looked thoughtful.

"What happens if you push too hard?"

"You can fracture their minds. I knew a padawan once, exceptionally strong at manipulation, she mentally damaged a clone to the point that it had to be destroyed." Obi-Wan frowned. "What was her name?"

A bolt of fear flashed like lightning through my abdomen, leaving me feeling as if all my organs were missing.

"She had very large eyes, I remember that..." He suddenly brightened. "Ah, yes. Her name was Na—Aika!"

Luke slammed on the brakes, but it didn't matter. I had already jumped out of the Landspeeder and rolled. I had already leapt to my feet. I was already running, creating the only distraction I could think of.

He would have forgotten the violet-eyed padawan by the time they caught me. He would have forgotten her journeys with him, her penchant for violence, the fact that she was unaccounted for when they inventoried the dead at the Temple. Luke would never ask about her again.

And I would never tell him.


	20. Chapter 20

** A/N: The first chapter in awhile. I hope that you haven't all deserted me because I was away so long. **

** And, unfortunately, I had a rather severe case of writer's block during most of that time. So this story has been dormant for me just as long as it has been for you. It feels good to return to it. (Even though this chapter could have been much, much better...I'm sorry. I was more in a hurry to update than to write something good.)**

** Also, a quick apology/explanation: I seem to be having some rather severe problems with my private messaging. Every time I try to reply to a review, or a message that someone sent me, I get an error message. So if anyone has been wondering why I've failed to respond to them...that would be why.**

** Does anyone have any suggestions?**

-*Nineteen Years Ago*-

Death. I had faced it bravely only a day or so ago, felt that I deserved it, even. But now? Threatened with it on a seemingly lawless planet so far from Coruscant? It was unthinkable, that this old man was ordering me killed. The newfound darkness surged, tapping into parts of me that I hadn't known existed, calling upon ancient instincts and strengths.

The logical (and more useful) reaction probably would have been to run away. Instead, I lunged forward, howling like an animal. I was completely intent on clawing deep furrows into Dooku's face, despite the facts that he was surrounded by Geonosian warriors apparently loyal to him and was several feet taller than me, not to mention more experienced in combat.

However, I never even got within a foot of him. Krylla was beside me in an instant, locking its (her?) fingers around my neck and hauling me backwards. I choked, clawing at her iron grip and beating at the stone floor with my feet. The pain shooting up through my wounded heel meant absolutely nothing to me—there was only rage, anger like I had never felt before, and a deep desire to hurt Dooku. And Krylla. And all the other beings around me.

Krylla hissed something in Geonosian, her fingers tightening around my neck. I felt my eyes bulge. Fixing my gaze on Dooku, I kept struggling towards him, even though I knew that it was a lost cause. He wanted to kill me. He thought that he _could _kill me. Idiotic, arrogant old man—I was powerful, more powerful than him. The darkness with its claws in my brain had told me so.

Dooku raised an eyebrow. "No, no, not quite yet. It seems that this padawan is a little more...interesting than I thought."

_I am going to kill you._

The shadows pulsed in time with my heartbeat, excited by this latest hate-filled thought. They scoured away my pain, my exhaustion, everything I had ever been taught about the Code and its lessons. Especially the ones about never causing unnecessary pain or taking pleasure in it.

The Force responded to my call, quick because of the shadows—and it did exactly what I asked of it.

Krylla's fingers snapped in half. She screamed, and I dashed away, turning around momentarily to stare at the alien that had caused me so much pain.

_She hurt you. _I wasn't entirely sure if the thought came from some other facet of myself or from the darkness itself, the stuff that had gifted me with this newfound strength. _Foul creature, taking such pleasure in it, too. Kill her. Crush her—it—like the insect that it is._

I was prepared to do it, if not for the slight whisper of reason at the back of my head. Whatever was left of Nakomi the Jedi padawan, whatever hadn't been devoured by whatever this blackness was or numbed by agony and fatigue. It tugged me away from the wounded Geonosian, back towards Dooku, who was the real enemy. Maybe. Something inside of me recognized him, or at least a part of him, as kin...

He examined me, eyes bright with interest. Before I could move, his hand twitched, and my limbs froze. He was holding me in place with the Force. Dooku was...a Jedi?

No. I wasn't entirely sure what he was (or what I was, for that matter), but he definitely wasn't a Jedi. None of my kind had things like this inside of them.

"So willing to embrace it," he mused, walking around me. He released me from his hold slightly so that I could cough, then the invisible vise returned. "Either no one has ever explained this to you, or...life as you have been taught to live it has never pleased you."

Dooku's eyes narrowed, and I got the feeling that he was smiling inwardly. "Nakomi, you said your name was? Well, Nakomi, it appears that Obi-Wan doesn't want you, seeing as he hasn't come yet. You could be useful to me."

No. Obi-Wan hadn't come. But he had to know where I was, what was happening—because I could feel him, directly behind a nearby pillar. He was watching. But obviously, he didn't care.

So I assumed. For some reason, I was unable to tap into his feelings.

"Hmm." Dooku bent and looked into my eyes. I glared back. "I've never seen it happen this fast before. But it doesn't matter. Come. I'll decide what to do with you later."

He placed a hand between my shoulder blades, guiding me towards a stone stairway. I kept my hands clenched into fists, my eyes locked forward. The dark feelings were overwhelming. Unlike the Force that I knew, which was a benevolent yet passive presence, this new version was determined to be constantly engaged with me. It rubbed against my psyche like a pet seeking attention. It took all of my willpower to keep it out, and it was all I could do to keep moving forward. Evidently, the closer I was to Dooku, the worse whatever it was became.

_Not worse. Better._

There was a huge room at the top of the stairs, the main feature of which was a round table. A small group of people, some whose species were entirely alien to me and others whose features were familiar, waited nervously. One of these was a human, clad in the nicked armor of a bounty hunter.

Jango Fett. I wasn't entirely sure why his presence heightened the anger I was already feeling; my memory was blurred. I wasn't entirely sure why it mattered, either.

"You." Dooku gestured authoritatively to a wingless Geonosian standing in the background, one of many. It came over, dipping its head in respect, and he shoved me towards it. I bared my teeth at being treated like a package. "Take her to a secure chamber, and keep watch over her. The child is...undergoing a transition at the moment, and she will be violent. Handle her with care."

It muttered acknowledgement and took me by the shoulders, guiding me out of the chamber. Dooku's voice faded behind me ("As I explained to you earlier, I'm quite convinced that..."), as well as the supernatural strength that I had somehow acquired. My pain returned, and my desperate struggles for freedom weakened exponentially, though my helpless anger didn't.

The Geonosian must have noticed the sudden recurrence of my exhaustion, because it moved its hands so that it was supporting me and cooed something that was probably meant to be comforting. I didn't pay any attention, just muttered something under my breath that might have resembled a curse. My memory of that time isn't all that clear.

The alien suddenly released me. I almost collapsed but managed to catch myself at the last moment, spinning around to see it backing away from me with its hands raised in surrender. Glancing in the other direction, I saw Obi-Wan, lightsaber still hanging at his waist. Not that he needed it to be intimidating.

"Leave this place," he said in a low voice. "Tell no one of what you have seen."

Evidently, the creature spoke at least a little basic, because it turned and fled.

I sank to my knees as Obi-Wan rushed over. Immediately, I felt...soothed. And tired. So incredibly tired. But it was alright for me to relax, I was safe now.

The older Jedi roughly hauled me to my feet, forcing me to put weight on my injured heel. He clapped a hand over my mouth before I could cry out, jerking my head from side to side so as to get a better view of my eyes. His expression was unreadable.

"Not completely gone," he muttered. "Not yet."

He pulled me into the shadows, where we would be hidden, and let me sit. Though he kept a tight grip on me, and his gaze never left mine.

"How can you be so defiant and yet so weak-willed?" he snapped in a whisper. "Did it even cross your mind to fight it?"

I didn't answer. Speech was beyond me at the moment.

"After ten years of the evils of the Dark Side being constantly drilled into you, I would have thought that maybe something would have registered, or perhaps your training with the Force would have given you a bit of resistance." Obi-Wan took a deep breath, the fury in his face dissolving into weariness. "Never have I seen a padawan _embrace _the Dark Side."

"I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter." He had lifted me, and was moving through the corridors of the Geonosian hive, presumably towards the outside. "The Council will need to be notified when we return. You will need to be closely watched—"

"Master Obi-Wan."

He glanced at me.

"I didn't...I didn't embrace it." At least, I didn't think that I had. It had taken me over. Though, to be fair, if I had known what _it _was, I probably would have fought a lot harder. I still have no idea how I failed to realize that what I was feeling was the Dark Side.

"We'll speak of this later."

Obi-Wan didn't talk to me for the rest of the journey. He didn't even look at me, except to make sure that he was setting me on top of broken glass or something when he put me down next to his Starfighter. I heard him sigh when he discovered what had happened to R4, but he said nothing else.

He spoke after half an hour of manually working the communications system, but not to me.

"Anakin, Anakin, do you copy? This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin?"

A pause. The only reply was static, and Obi-Wan quietly cursed. "He's not on Naboo."

I sat with my knees drawn to my chest and watched him widen his search signal, looking desperately for his padawan. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry, but I didn't dare interrupt his work. No, that was a lie. I didn't want to have to face his anger again—or his disappointment. Obi-Wan was not my master, but I had been through more with him in the past few days than I had with Aayla in years. That sort of thing tended to forge a bond.

But maybe it was no use dwelling on it now. A small shower of gravel and sand tumbled off the edge of the overhang that we were under, and I looked up warily. Something told me that we weren't alone.

"That's Anakin's tracking signal, alright," Obi-Wan muttered to himself, "but it's coming from Tatooine. What in the blazes is he doing there? I told him to stay on Naboo."

There was something up there. I stood, favoring my injured foot, and squinted against the glare of the sun. It had ducked out of sight, whatever it was, but I had seen it.

"Master?"

"Not now. Anakin, Anakin, do you copy? This is Obi-Wan Kenobi...ah, the Senator's droid. Record this message and take it to your mistress, Padmè, and the Jedi Skywalker. Anakin, my long-range translator has been knocked out. Retransmit this message to Coruscant. And please, hurry, there is..." Obi-Wan glanced at me. "...a youngling with me."

He continued speaking. I hobbled a little ways away from the Starfighter, his voice fading into background noise with distance. Whatever I had seen appeared to be gone now—a fact that disturbed me greatly. More than ever, I wanted to go home.

_Weak, _the last traces of the darkness whispered. I clamped my hands over my ears and screwed my eyes shut, even though I knew that that wouldn't help. _Spoiled, useless child. You're injured and weaponless, and it's your own fault. Couldn't you at least try to aid the Jedi, instead of just wishing for creature comforts? You'll be the death of him, and both of you know it._

"Nakomi!"

A startled yell broke the shadow's hold on me, and I whirled around, wincing at the pain in my foot. Obi-Wan was grappling with a pair of droids, deadly-looking ones that I had never seen the likes of before, and a third was scuttling towards me. My breath caught in my throat.

If it caught me, it would take me back to the Geonosian hive. Back to Dooku, and his twisted version of the Force. Part of me cried out for it, was entwined with it even now.

But the stronger part, the larger part, the part that had been so shamed by Obi-Wan's words, was utterly repelled by the idea.

_No._

Just a single word. Maybe it was the death cry of the Dark Side, maybe it was encouragement from the Side that I had always known, and maybe it was just me. It didn't matter.

I ran.

** A/N: This will be the last flashback for awhile, until I can figure out where I want this particular arc to go and, to put it in crude terms, make these parts of the story stop sucking so bad. Maybe someone likes them, I have no idea, but I've never been proud of any of these.**

** Even when I eventually bring this arc back, I'll likely put several flashback chapters together at a time to try and reduce confusion. **

** And in retrospect, I probably should not have written this chapter while I had a 100.2-degree fever.**


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